# Newbie bacon questions / help



## sharris (Sep 9, 2012)

OK, I've just cooked up my 3rd attempt at making bacon, and clearly I'm doing something wrong, because my bacon just isn't very good (which I didn't think was possible!).

I've got some theories, but wanted to ask some pros :)

All bellies were dry cured, basically using the method from Ruhlman's recipe, here: http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2/

Belly 1: 5lbs belly skin on,  1/4 cup kosher salt, 2 tsp pink salt #1, 1/4 cup brown sugar, liberal black pepper. Cured 8 days in the fridge. I cut this belly in two, and smoked both halves with different wood (alder, cherry), each for 2.5 hours. This bacon was was reaally salty, and I sliced it with the rind on, which I realized I don't like. More below.

Belly 2: Just over 3lbs belly, skin on, 55g kosher salt, 4g pink salt #1, 55g brown sugar, 1/4 cup maple syrup. Cured for 7 days in the fridge. I threw a few sprigs of fresh sage in this one too. Cold smoked for 2 hours (alder+oak mix), then roasted in the oven at 200, for about 70 minutes. This bacon tasted ... odd. The only thing I can think to compare it to is like a Chinese ham or roast pork. I thought maybe the sage, or maybe the maple syrup, was to blame, but I just couldn't tell. It didn't taste like bacon though.

Belly 3: 2.6 lbs belly, skin on. I cut the skin off of this belly before curing it, and foolishly did not weight it afterward. I used 40g kosher salt, 25g brown sugar, 3.5g pink salt #1. Cured in the fridge for 7 days. Cold smoked for 3.25 hours with oak. This bacon didn't get as pink as I thought it should on the outside, but seemed OK once I sliced it. 

ALL of these bacons had what I can only describe as an off, chemical taste to them, which was particularly apparent in both the rind and the fatty parts of the bacon. My tongue and my brain tell me it tastes too "nitrite-y" - which I guess I would describe as kind of a sweet, acrid flavor. But you know what else has a sweet, acrid flavor? Smoke. So maybe it's a smoke problem? There is something about it that seems more chemical tasting than smoke though. 

I built my cold smoker myself, using a 10 gal steel can with a lid. I drilled a couple of holes in the bottom of the can for air, and another hole to fit a soldering iron in. I have an old baked beans can that I cleaned, and use as the sawdust tray, which the soldering iron also fits in to. Then I have a tray that sits a few inches below the top of the can, which I put the bacon on the smoke. I typically turn the soldering iron on for about 15 minutes, and then turn off for about 15 minutes, checking from time to time to make sure that a little bit of smoke can be seen escaping from the top.

Back to the bacon... like I said before, I have some theories:

#!1: My Cure % is not exact enough. I know the ratio of cure to meat needs to be pretty accurate, and I have since downloaded the calculator xls, but surely there can be a little bit of room for error. I feel like my measurements have been pretty accurate, or at least not inaccurate enough that it would make such a difference.

#2: Not smoking for long enough. The longest I've smoked a belly was a little over 3 hours, but maybe I need to smoke it longer? I've read people talking about how the belly comes out from smoking with a really pink color. I haven't noticed this on any of my bacons - it looks about the same as when I put it in. Not that it's not pinkish, but I just don't really see it CHANGE to a different color. Maybe I'm not smoking it long enough to see this change?

#3: Meat is too close to the smoke source. While my bacon sits a couple inches below the top of the can, it's also only a few inches above the source of smoke. Maybe it is TOO close to the smoke, and is picking up too concentrated a smoke flavor, and that's really what the sweet acrid taste is that I'm getting. Or, the size of my smoker is too small, and the smoke needs to be a little more room to dissipate? I would be a little surprised if this is the reason, but it seems plausible to me. The thing is, I haven't really read/heard of this being something to be concerned with. I've heard you can over-smoke meat, but my understanding was that that took like 24+ hours of smoking. 

So, bacon pros ... any advice? I've been having fun making the bacon so far, but it's just so disappointing to put in the work and the waiting, and have the end result be a bacon that I, incredulously, almost don't care to eat.

sh


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## fpnmf (Sep 9, 2012)

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/124885/bacon-made-the-easy-way


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## diggingdogfarm (Sep 9, 2012)

I think that even though you've used way more than enough cure#1 in each instance (in the first batch the nitrite level is over twice the recommended safe amount) that the real problem lies in the smoking.
Turning the soldering iron on and off as well has having the bacon so close are likely the major off-flavor culprits.
I'd look into a better method of smoking, such as the AMNS smoke generator, and smoke for a longer period of time, and let the bacon mellow for 3-4 days before slicing and frying.

Here's a calculator that allows you to fine tune the salt and sugar levels exactly to your liking......

http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

HTH

~Martin


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## daveomak (Sep 9, 2012)

sh, evening and welcome to the forum.....  fpnmf and Martin have you covered....  

I have learned that weighing every ingredient is important for consistency....   Grams per pound of meat, or what ever is convenient for you, helps in the future of appraising your end product....  Salt, for instance, I use 8 grams/pound which is about 2%.... and with adding cure #1 at about 1.2 grams/pound,  that value changes to about 9 grams/pound salt....  works out pretty well for my tastes... 

Smoke.... I have seen commercial operations that smoke bacon for 24 hours.... Literally, you can hardly see the smoke.... they have fans recirculating the air and smoke inside the smoke chambers for drying and contact....  then the bacon hangs and ages in a cooler for a couple days....    Mind you this is an "old world" way of doing bacon but worth it....  

I like the way you changed parameters to vary the outcome of flavor profiles...  keep it up and keep us posted please..  

Also, would you please stop into "roll call" so we can properly welcome you to the forum....  

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/f/133/roll-call

Good smoking and enjoy the long smokey ride on this forum...   Dave


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## sharris (Sep 10, 2012)

Thanks for the responses!

fpnmf, I have seen this posted a few times while lurking the forums, and it is the method I plan on trying next, just based on my failures with my current method. However, I'm still curious about the root cause of what might be wrong with my bacon. I know other people have used the recipe with success, so I'm wondering if it's a problem with my method, or maybe just a personal taste preference?

Martin, I'd be curious to hear why turning the iron on/off might be a contributing factor. I'm also surprised to hear I've used so much extra cure. The first cure was based purely off the Ruhlman recipe,  which I hadn't seen as being twice the safe amount. The other two ratios were determined from the curing calculator excel spreadsheet I found on this site, at least as far as the pink salt. My understanding is also that the pink salt ratio is based on the weight of the meat, not on the amounts of other added salt/sugar. Or, is the salt::pink salt ratio also specific? 

I'm looking into that AMNS, though I don't know that using that would appreciably change the distance of the meat from the smoke source, so I may need to look into a bigger container.

Dave, thanks for the info. I'm going to keep trying a few more bellies - I'm not quite ready to give up ;) 

I'll try and keep the forum up to date the next time I get a belly, and I introduced myself in Roll Call.

sh


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## diggingdogfarm (Sep 10, 2012)

sharris said:


> Martin, I'd be curious to hear why turning the iron on/off might be a contributing factor.



It's a guess on my part, I haven't intentionally tried to make bacon taste bad, so I don't know for sure, but I do know that if the combustion temp isn't high enough it can lead to weird flavors.



sharris said:


> I'm also surprised to hear I've used so much extra cure. The first cure was based purely off the Ruhlman recipe,  which I hadn't seen as being twice the safe amount. The other two ratios were determined from the curing calculator excel spreadsheet I found on this site, at least as far as the pink salt. My understanding is also that the pink salt ratio is based on the weight of the meat, not on the amounts of other added salt/sugar. Or, is the salt::pink salt ratio also specific?



I have no idea why Ruhlman/Polcyn use 2 tsp. of Cure #1 per 5 lbs. of belly, that's 312ppm!!!!! :icon_eek:
The spreadsheet uses 200 ppm nitrite, that's a level intended for true extended dry curing.
156ppm is more than enough for skin-off bacon and 10% less 140.4ppm is plenty for skin-on.


HTH

~Martin


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## daveomak (Sep 10, 2012)

sh, morning....    Maybe the belies you received were already pumped with brine and cure ??  Allowing the bacon to "bloom" in the refer for a couple days, unwrapped, will improve and mellow the flavor.....  Too much smoke will add to the acrid, foul tasting finished product.....   Not have formed a really good pellicle will mingle the smoke with water on the bacon surface to form an acidic layer similar to "acid rain".....  same stuff that forms in the atmosphere....     In Rhulman's recipes, some steps are foggy or left out completely.... It is the nature of the beast when trying to describe something very familiar to yourself, to others not familiar with what you are doing....  

All that being said, making bacon is an art...  It takes time to perfect a recipe..... One scenario does come to mind....

You have developed a taste for "store bought bacon"..... Real bacon, that which was made and distributed 50 + years ago is totally different than today's bacon.....  Some butcher's bacon needed oil in the fry pan when cooking...  Rind on was a treat....   This type bacon will take time to acquire a taste....   Like growing up on "mountain dew" and switching to a 15 year single malt scotch....   

When I first started smoking, all my smoked meat tasted really metallic, creosote like and bad.....  Learning a very little smoke goes a long way is a learning process.....   Types of wood etc play a significant role in finished flavor....  

For a smoker, try a 55 gal drum or washing machine cardboard box....  I think a 10 gallon can was too small and concentrated the smoke too much...  There needs to be holes in the top and bottom for really good air flow... air flow you can see the smoke in....    

Hope this helps.....   we are here to make you the best bacon maker in you neighborhood....    Dave


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## sharris (Sep 11, 2012)

Thanks Martin. I have been considering the AMNS, sounds like it might be worth my while to invest in one.

Dave, as far as the bellies go, I've been getting them from my local butcher here in San Francisco, and I know they are untouched, other than being butchered. I actually feel awful, as the bellies I have been getting have been exquisite specimens, and I've just been dishonoring them. They've cost about double what I could get 'em for at the Asian supermarket, but I just don't quite trust how those pigs were raised. 

I typically get my bacon (all my meat, actually) from this butcher as well, so I don't think it's that I've acquired a taste for grocery store bacon. I feel like I can appreciate the difference between the two, and I most definitely like my bacon cut thicker than even those "thick cut" packages.

I'm gonna try the method mentioned in the post above, next, and see if I can get something bigger to smoke in. I don't have a whole lot of room, living in the city, and having no yard, so I don't know if a washing machine box is really do-able. Perhaps I can figure out something taller, but less wide. I'm gonna look around the forums more to get some ideas ;)


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