# 1st run at bacon



## auschip (Nov 11, 2014)

Strolling through the grocery the other day, I caught the butcher putting out some good looking pork bellies.  I've wanted to try bacon for awhile, so I grabbed a small amount (6 pounds), and immediately started searching for good recipes.  I put together two different cures, one pepper and one sweet maples.  Incidentally, picking up pink salt was slightly harder then I thought it would be.  Anyway, so after slightly longer then a day of curing, and another day of drying (I used a bakers rack on a cookie sheet in the beer fridge), I put them in the UDS (well, it isn't really ugly ... but it is a drum smoker).  Since I wanted to keep the fat from rendering, I modified the setup.  Opened all 4 vents, and put my well soaked wood chips (mix of apple and cherry) in a disposable meatloaf pan.  Then I got the chimney going and dropped about 4 good size burning chunks onto the top of the chips.  I ended up doing this 3 times over a 6 hour period.  Basically anytime the smoke slowed down I would check and replace. 

Bacon turned out delicious, and while much smokier then I would have imagined, the wife gave it a thumbs up. 













bacon.png



__ auschip
__ Nov 11, 2014


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## daveomak (Nov 11, 2014)

Auschip said:


> Strolling through the grocery the other day, I caught the butcher putting out some good looking pork bellies.  I've wanted to try bacon for awhile, so I grabbed a small amount (6 pounds), and immediately started searching for good recipes.  I put together two different cures, one pepper and one sweet maples.  Incidentally, picking up pink salt was slightly harder then I thought it would be.
> 
> *Anyway, so after slightly longer then a day of curing, and another day of drying (I used a bakers rack on a cookie sheet in the beer fridge), I put them in the UDS*
> 
> ...




Looks good.....    Where did your recipe, for making bacon, come from....   Only a day in the cure ??  am I reading this correctly....   

Can you post the recipe here......    

Dave


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## auschip (Nov 11, 2014)

I'll see if I can put the recipe together, it was an amalgamation of pinterest searches and searches here.  The cure might have been as long as 36 hours, I didn't set an alarm on it or anything. =)  It was 24ish in the wet solution, and then I pulled it out and placed on the racks to dry (with more spices) for another 24 or so.


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## daveomak (Nov 11, 2014)

Generally, cure, sodium nitrite needs at least 24 hours to penetrate per 1/4" thickness of meat....   Cures we use are a mixture of salt 93.75% and nitrite 6.25%....  and are applied to meats at rates specified by the FDA...   Those rates are between 120 Ppm and 625Ppm nitrite, depending on the specific use of the meat, and curing methods employed...    Bacon having the smallest amount of cure applied....  

This forum has some fairly knowledgeable folks and they can be relied upon for accurate information....   

Pinterest, the web in general, blogs etc, and even some books do not have reliable information...  

Reliable authors do employ folks that are illiterate, when it comes to curing meats etc., and therefore do not know when they make a typo or if a recipe they are transcribing is in error....  Consequently, there are many recipes that are not correct..... 

Just trying to help you out here....  The recipe you used does not sound like a recipe I or anyone on this forum would use...

Dave


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## auschip (Nov 11, 2014)

I do appreciate the info, and will keep it in mind for future slabs.  I'm by no means an expert, rank amateur at best, so I can use any and all help. 

Cheers!


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## daveomak (Nov 11, 2014)

If you can post the recipe you used, we can proofread it's content for you.....  

Dave


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