# Bearcarvers Bacon Recipe



## Nodak21 (Apr 21, 2022)

Hello, 
I was wondering if you could help me find bears tenderquick belly bacon recipe. I tried searching with no luck. I have 3 moose roasts in his dried beef (venison) tq recipe right now and will he ready to smoke on Wednesday using his time calculations. I finished a belly in Pops brine (picture below) last week after 14 day soak and it turned out awesome! A Tish sweet for me but wife and kids are loving it. Thanks for any help.


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## TNJAKE (Apr 21, 2022)

Bearcarver


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## DougE (Apr 21, 2022)

Why not just use cure#1 in a dry cure? It's simple. 0.25% cure#1, 1.5% salt, 0.75%sugar. put about half the rub on each side, bag it, let it ride in the fridge for a couple weeks, overhauling it every day or two.


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## Nodak21 (Apr 21, 2022)

Never thought about that. I just bought a bottle of pink cure salt from ps seasoning. Is that the same as cure #1 ? Does this recipe get overly salty if left too long? Do you usually use 14 days for a belly thickness chunk of meat? Thanks for your help.


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## TNJAKE (Apr 21, 2022)

As long as that pink cure salt is 6.25% nitrite then yes that's cute #1. However that's not the same thing as tender quick


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## DougE (Apr 21, 2022)

Instacure, Prague powder, cure#1 should be the same thing, and by dry curing, and controlling the salt in the rub, it will never get too salty. With the salt, and the salt in the cure, you'll be at 1.75% total salt . Just make sure what you have is the same as cure#1, and not cure#2. And don't go much below 1.5%salt, because the cure is driven by salt.


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## Nodak21 (Apr 21, 2022)

TNJAKE said:


> As long as that pink cure salt is 6.25% nitrite then yes that's cute #1. However that's not the same thing as tender quick


Thanks Jake! I just checked the label and it is 6.25% nitrite. I used this in pops brine. I bought the Morton’s tenderquick for the dried beef that bear posted and was going to try it on bacon but now I will probably use the recipe DougE posted. Hoping it isn’t quite as sweet as pops. How long do you guys usually put smoke to a belly? We always cook our bacon on the flat top or oven so I wouldn’t need to fully cook it in the smoker, more so just for taste. I hope this is ok because I only put 4 hours of smoke at about 125 degrees on the pops brine one I did.


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## DougE (Apr 21, 2022)

Perfectly safe to cold smoke as long as you want curing like I said. I usually take mine to 145*, but it isn't necessary.


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## TNJAKE (Apr 21, 2022)

Nodak21 said:


> Thanks Jake! I just checked the label and it is 6.25% nitrite. I used this in pops brine. I bought the Morton’s tenderquick for the dried beef that bear posted and was going to try it on bacon but now I will probably use the recipe DougE posted. Hoping it isn’t quite as sweet as pops. How long do you guys usually put smoke to a belly? We always cook our bacon on the flat top or oven so I wouldn’t need to fully cook it in the smoker, more so just for taste. I hope this is ok because I only put 4 hours of smoke at about 125 degrees on the pops brine one I did.


Cool thing with the dry brine method that 

 DougE
 mentioned is you can tweek to your taste. With tender quick you can't.


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## Nodak21 (Apr 21, 2022)

DougE said:


> Perfectly safe to cold smoke as long as you want curing like I said.


Thanks for your help Doug. I might reach out when I get ready to put the cure,salt, sugar on the belly to make sure the amounts make sense and my math is good.


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## DougE (Apr 21, 2022)

Nodak21 said:


> Thanks for your help Doug. I might reach out when I get ready to put the cure,salt, sugar on the belly to make sure the amounts make sense and my math is good.


Any time. And yeah, post up your recipe when you get ready to go. If you're not already using grams to weigh everything, switch. It's much easier than ounces and pounds when making recipe calculations.


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## SmokinEdge (Apr 21, 2022)

DougE said:


> Why not just use cure#1 in a dry cure? It's simple. 0.25% cure#1, 1.5% salt, 0.75%sugar. put about half the rub on each side, bag it, let it ride in the fridge for a couple weeks, overhauling it every day or two.


I agree with this.
In this way you apply the amount of salt and sugar, along with cure #1 that you want flavor wise and safety wise in the final product. Doug knows what he is saying. This process works perfectly and longer times are never a problem because the salt sugar can never be more than was originally applied. This is the method I use and encourage all to do the same.


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## Bearcarver (Apr 22, 2022)

Nodak21 said:


> Hello,
> I was wondering if you could help me find bears tenderquick belly bacon recipe. I tried searching with no luck. I have 3 moose roasts in his dried beef (venison) tq recipe right now and will he ready to smoke on Wednesday using his time calculations. I finished a belly in Pops brine (picture below) last week after 14 day soak and it turned out awesome! A Tish sweet for me but wife and kids are loving it. Thanks for any help.



Sorry I missed you last night, but it looks like you decided to use Cure #1 instead.
However I believe this is what you were looking for:
*Bacon (Extra Smoky)

Bear*


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## BigW. (Apr 22, 2022)

All of Bear's recipes are in his signature.  So if the search doesn't work, find any post where Bear makes a comment and click on his very helpful "steps"


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