First attempt at bacon

[KJRsmoker]

I bought a 10lb pork belly at Costco. Cut it in half and dry brined it for 7 days, flipping it every day.  Rinsed it off then soaked in water for 3 hours.  Put in refrigerator, uncovered, for 24 hours then smoked on my 2 Star until IT of 150F (about 4 hours).  Cooled then vacuum sealed to rest for 24 hours.  Sliced all of it, sealed some of it, and cooked the rest.  All in all, not too difficult and it turned out great.  I will decrease the amount of salt in the brine next time while increasing the amount of brown sugar and maple syrup.

[Smokerjunky]

Congrats on some great looking bacon.  Would you mind sharing the recipe for your cure? 

I thought the same about my last batch regarding the salt. I sliced off a small piece before smoking it and fried it to test for salt level.  I ended up soaking it in clear/clean water (probably should have used distilled but didn't have any) for an hour, tried it again, still a bit salty so changed water and soaked again and it was much better. 

[KJRsmoker]

Congrats on some great looking bacon.  Would you mind sharing the recipe for your cure? 

I thought the same about my last batch regarding the salt. I sliced off a small piece before smoking it and fried it to test for salt level.  I ended up soaking it in clear/clean water (probably should have used distilled but didn't have any) for an hour, tried it again, still a bit salty so changed water and soaked again and it was much better.

I found this recipe online and I doubled it for the 10lbs:
1/2 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1TBS black pepper
1TBS garlic powder
1 tsp curing salt
1/4 cup maple syrup

With the next batch (which might be awhile since 10lbs of bacon should last me a few months), I'm going to go 1/4 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, pepper but no garlic, and up the amount of maple syrup.  For my soak, I used filtered tap water.  I'll try distilled water next time to see if makes a difference.

[KyNola]

Looks great!

[Roget]

Beautiful cook.
I'm going to try making bacon (for the first time) as soon as I get my house put back together.
I hope it comes out as good as yours.

[ClimberDave]

Looks great!!

Can't seem to get whole pork bellies at my local Costco, on the off chance they have PB its always cut in 1-2" wide strips, not sure why.

[TMB]

Looks good from here

[Smokerjunky]

Congrats on some great looking bacon.  Would you mind sharing the recipe for your cure? 

I thought the same about my last batch regarding the salt. I sliced off a small piece before smoking it and fried it to test for salt level.  I ended up soaking it in clear/clean water (probably should have used distilled but didn't have any) for an hour, tried it again, still a bit salty so changed water and soaked again and it was much better.

I found this recipe online and I doubled it for the 10lbs:
1/2 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1TBS black pepper
1TBS garlic powder
1 tsp curing salt
1/4 cup maple syrup

With the next batch (which might be awhile since 10lbs of bacon should last me a few months), I'm going to go 1/4 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, pepper but no garlic, and up the amount of maple syrup.  For my soak, I used filtered tap water.  I'll try distilled water next time to see if makes a difference.

Thanks - very similar to my recipe with the exception of the maple syrup but that sounds good.  Great looking bacon.  Thanks for the info!

[Pappymn]

Fantastic. Congrats


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