Hey to anyone who can provide some feedback
I am going to attempt my first cold smoke with bacon hopefully next week. I just put a 3 1/2 lb pork belly in some cure last night (dry cure) and will allow it to cure for about a week.
My question is if I actually used enough cure. Up here in Canada it is more difficult to get Prague powder or cure #1 but I can easily get readycure from a local grocery store that is within driving distance from my house. This stuff is only 1% nitrite so I searched for a formula as to how much to use for my belly and found one on this website.
http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/calculator/dry_cure_bacon/
I entered all values it requested but changed the value of cure to 150 as the max. The amount it advised me to use was just under 20g and about 16g of salt since this particular cure has a high salt content. After rubbing in the cure, placing it into a freezer bag and then to the fridge I notice on the bag of cure it recommends using 20g per kilo of meat. The calculations I was given amounted to 19.6g for almost 1.5 kilos of belly! Will this still be sufficient if I plan to cold smoke my bacon after the 7 day cure or should I mix up some more cure and apply it after a few days to be safe? And how many hours of smoking is recommended for this project? I have the Amaze-n-pellet smoker and a master forge double door propane smoker, which I just so happen to be using right now with the AMPS to cold smoke some cheese.
Thanks for any insight that you may provide
I am going to attempt my first cold smoke with bacon hopefully next week. I just put a 3 1/2 lb pork belly in some cure last night (dry cure) and will allow it to cure for about a week.
My question is if I actually used enough cure. Up here in Canada it is more difficult to get Prague powder or cure #1 but I can easily get readycure from a local grocery store that is within driving distance from my house. This stuff is only 1% nitrite so I searched for a formula as to how much to use for my belly and found one on this website.
http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/calculator/dry_cure_bacon/
I entered all values it requested but changed the value of cure to 150 as the max. The amount it advised me to use was just under 20g and about 16g of salt since this particular cure has a high salt content. After rubbing in the cure, placing it into a freezer bag and then to the fridge I notice on the bag of cure it recommends using 20g per kilo of meat. The calculations I was given amounted to 19.6g for almost 1.5 kilos of belly! Will this still be sufficient if I plan to cold smoke my bacon after the 7 day cure or should I mix up some more cure and apply it after a few days to be safe? And how many hours of smoking is recommended for this project? I have the Amaze-n-pellet smoker and a master forge double door propane smoker, which I just so happen to be using right now with the AMPS to cold smoke some cheese.
Thanks for any insight that you may provide