Red spot on pork belly after pulling from cure

[zueth]

I had two pork bellies in a maple cure for 7 days in my fridge. Tonight I pulled them out of cure and one of them has a red spot on it.  Does that happen sometimes?


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[teesquare]

Was it folded in a way that prevented the cure from reaching this area? Give us some detail on exactly how your process was done....maybe we can come up with a determination of what happened - and whether or not it is of concern.

[TentHunteR]

That simply looks like a spot that was sitting against your brining vessel/bag and didn't get much circulation, or sticking above the surface of the brine, and the surface didn't oxidize.  Even so, you should be fine!  The salt & cure will continue to equalize even while it's out of the brine (even if it was a dry-rub cure, it still created a brine).

The purpose of overhauling (flipping) bacon, hems, etc. once every couple days is to minimize this.

Even with overhauling though, I get spots like that on occasion.  As long as it doesn't smell spoiled, don't worry about it and smoke on! 

[zueth]

Thanks for the insight. It was a cure of maple sugar, maple syrup, kosher salt, and cure #1. I rubbed cure on each belly and put each 5lb belly in a zip lock and flipped
Each day.


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[Agustine]

Although yours is a little larger than what I have seen on mine I would agree this is common and smoke on as they say.