Canadian Bacon
- 7-8 lb. Pork loin roast
- 1 Gallon water
- Curing ingredients,
- 3 oz Con Yeager Curing Salt or comparable brand (it is pink, and should contain 6.25% sodium nitrite.) If you use Morton’s Tender quick, use their directions…I believe they do not use the additional pickling salt, but check to be sure!
- 1 cup Pickling Salt or Kosher salt
- 3 bay leaves
- 1.25 cups brown sugar
- 3 garlic cloves (whole)
- 3 tablespoons of My Rub
- 1 tablespoon juniper berries, slightly crushed
- 1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns
Oh, a quick note on the curing agent; it is intentionally dyed pink so that it is not mistaken for 'regular' salt.
First of all, use a non-reactive pot to make your brine in…no aluminum or cast iron. In addition, the same goes for your brining container, I use a large Tupperware like container (big enough to hold a loin cut into 2 equal pieces comfortably.
Bring all ingredients together with the 1 gallon of water and boil hard for about 10 minutes to ensure everything is dissolved and flavors captured from the garlic, bay leaves berries and peppercorns.
Remove pot from heat, strain curing brine if you prefer (I do not), and let cool to 38°F, which is your ideal temp. (I put mine on the deck overnight to cool, so as not to melt everything in the fridge!) Add the loin(s) and weigh down with a plate if necessary to ensure they remain submerged in the brine.
If using large loins, you can use a cooks' syringe to inject strained curing brine into the heart of the meat every 2” along the length to ensure complete curing. With the ones pictured here, I just did a straight soak for 4-6 days. If using multiple pieces of pork that might be resting on each other, it wouldn't hurt to flip them within the brine about halfway through the curing process to allow brine to reach all surface area of the meat.
After the 4-6 days of soaking, remove the pork loins from the curing brine. At this point they can be rinsed/soaked in clean, cold water to remove some of the saltiness of the brine (I did this for 30 minutes). Depending on your taste/tolerance of the salt content in cured meat, you may want to skip this step entirely or soak/rinse for up to 2 hours (change the water a couple of times if going this length of time).
Next, pat the loins dry with paper towel and put in fridge overnight till a dry pellicle (crust) results. Apply a thin coating of yellow mustard followed by the CB Rub (or your Rub)
Now if you want the canadian bacon to be nice and round, you must use a salami net or truss it with butcher string, although it doesn’t affect the taste one smidgen either way!
Prepare an indirect fire in your smoker, aiming for a temperature of 225°F. Use the smokewood of your choice. I've chosen to go with a few good-sized chunks of hickory and a chunk of cherry/apple or pear (no mesquite!)
The target internal temperature of the cook will be determined largely by your finished intention for the pork loins. If you are looking for a breakfast bacon to be fried before eating, then an internal of 140-145°F will be ideal. For a finished fully-cooked product, keep cooking to internal of 155-160°F.
The loins came off the cooker at 145°F internal, as it's my intention to use them as a breakfast bacon. After the Canadian Bacon is cooled I scrub most of the rub off with my bare hands under the kitchen faucet and dry with a paper towel, it just makes slicing the bacon slippery if you don’t, it already has done it’s job, and leaving it on just makes for a messy time trying to cut and shrink wrap. I don‘t slice all my bacon up like some people, I eyeball it and try to cut into one pound hunks before I wrap.
The bacon can be fried up immediately or kept in the fridge with much the same shelf-life as other commercial cured bacons. It also freezes well.
For breakfast bacon, fry the cured pork loins using a bit of (butter/lard/oil/Pam) for a just a bit over medium heat until outside caramelizes a little and loins are heated through. Remember it was already cooked once.For paninis, I like it sliced real thin and piled high.
I think you will like this version, it’s also great on pizza or my breakfast panini, or even good cold on stone ground crackers with coarse mustard and peppercinis!