# how do I make canadian bacon?



## bossdogg (Mar 15, 2010)

I have the general concept that Canadian bacon is the lion that is then smoked and sliced in 1/8" slices.  I picked a loin up and I want to turn it into Canadian bacon.  it is only half a loin so it should fit nicely on my ECB.  My question is this.  I do not want to put my normal rub on it just for the simple fact I want it to turn out like bacon.  not smoked pork.  Here are my thoughts.  Inject with apple juice and then smoke at around 250 deg till it hits a internal of 170 ish.  every hour though I was going to either baste it or spray it with maple syrup.  but I do not know if the syrup will burn or not.  or even if the maple syrup will go good with it.  I then plan on slicing it after letting it rest for a bit and then slicing it and freezing it in individual packs for later consumption.  I plan on using hickory for my wood.  

thoughts or suggestions are welcome.


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## badfrog (Mar 15, 2010)

Canadian Bacon is a two step process...
1. the Cure
2. the Smoke

The cure gives it the traditional pink color and lots of flavor and moisture.
*The cure (brine);*
1 gallon of water
1 1/2 cups kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 oz pink salt (8 tsp)
1 large bunch thyme
2 garlic cloves

combine the brine in a large ss pot to dissolve salt and sugar; cool to room temp then refrigerate. You can speed up the cool process by leaving our 3 or 4 ice trays worth of water, and then once at room temp, add the 4 trys of ice to cool quicker.

once cold, place the loin in the brine and weight it to keep it submerged. leave it in the brine for 48 hrs.

after the brine, remove, discard the brine, rinse the loin and dry it. set it on a rack in the fridge (with a drip pan underneath it!) for 24 hrs.

*hot smoke* (375-300 degrees) to an internal temp of 150 ( about 2 1/2 hours). 

cool slice and refrigerate any leftovers!

This recipe is based on the Canadian bacon recipe in the book "Charcuterie". I have used this recipe many times...it makes a real tasty bacon!!!


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## rbranstner (Mar 15, 2010)

You can also do a dry rub cure on it as well. A lot of people buy the HighMountain Buck Board Bacon kit if you can find it around your area.


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## rbranstner (Mar 15, 2010)

Take a look around in here and you should find all kinds of information and different ways you can make the bacon. 

http://smokingmeatforums.com/forums/...play.php?f=134


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## bossdogg (Mar 15, 2010)

thanks fellas.  here is the problem though.  I put myself on a low calorie low carb diet.  but I love bacon.  I mean come on who doesn't.  I was looking for more of a unprocessed taste.  less salt and mostly just smoky slightly sweet slices of ham to stick in my breakfast.  is this unrealistic?  or impossible?


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## pineywoods (Mar 15, 2010)

To make bacon you have to cure it otherwise its just pork. You can use either Tender Quick or Instacure #1, or Hi Mountain Buckboard Bacon Cure with good results


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## bossdogg (Mar 15, 2010)

thats what I figured.

pineywoods are you by chance the same pineywoods that was/is on brewboard?


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## pineywoods (Mar 16, 2010)

No I'm not good gosh I have enough hobbies


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## shooterrick (Mar 16, 2010)

?As Piney said bacon must be cured. I personally use Tender Quick. If you are concerned about the salt soak in cold water with a few quartered taters raw. Slice a thin piece and fry. If still too salty soak again. The taters will help pull the salt out.  Once yo are satisfied with salt content smoke to 145 and slice and package.  If you do not want to cook it when done smoke to 160.


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## ddave (Mar 16, 2010)

I (and my family) are *BIG FANS* of ShooterRick's Canadian Bacon method.  
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





  He has an excellent tutorial that I have seen but I don't know if it's on this forum or not.

Dave


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## thunderdome (Mar 16, 2010)

Can you help me out with a link to that one?


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## pineywoods (Mar 16, 2010)

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=74611


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## gnubee (Mar 16, 2010)

For true Canadian bacon , cross the Northern border of the lower 48 on or about the 49th parallel.


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## codymcgee (Mar 16, 2010)

you said to "Hot Smoke" 350-375. what about someone such as I with an electric ECB it has no temp adjustment and stays at about 250. would i still be able to do the CB?


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## pineywoods (Mar 16, 2010)

No reason you can't do CB. I actually try to run my smoker as cool as I can for a couple hours to get  more smoke flavor then turn it up to about 200-225 to get the CB up to temp I add smoke the entire time its smoking


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## Bearcarver (Mar 16, 2010)

Like Piney said.

Also *below *is a link to the first Canadian Bacon I ever made, and exactly how I did it.   
*IT WAS GREAT !*


http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...t=83018&page=3


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## ak1 (Mar 16, 2010)

Use maple to smoke. We don't have hickory.


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## bossdogg (Mar 16, 2010)

thanks fellas.  I do not have any maple wood here.  and I do not have any cut up.  I do want to check with the local hardwood store.


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## bossdogg (Mar 18, 2010)

well I got a 9 lb loin tonight at the store.  I followed bearcarvers recipe and assumed that he did a tbs of TQ and brown sugar to a lb of meat since the TQ package said a tbs was needed per pound.  so I used 9 tbs of tq and 9 tbs of brown sugar.  I plan on smoking next friday or maybe next thursday.  will hickory work well with smoking these loins?  I plan on smoking at low temp like suggested and working up to 225 ish and smoke till internal temp of 160 is hit.  does anyone see any flaws?


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## Bearcarver (Mar 19, 2010)

Sounds like a great plan. I now use 1/2 ounce of TQ per pound, which is just a little more accurate than 1 tablespoon per pound, because of the level/heaping or anything in between problem. I also find it easier to figure when I need to find how much TQ to use for a piece that might weigh "3 lbs 11 ounces". You will be fine, and your CB will be great. Hickory will do fine, but don't let it smoke too heavy for too long.
I'm going on a pork loin hunt today, because I want to do the same thing, only this time I'm going to cut most of it at 5/8" thick for 
Boneless Smoked Pork Chops", because I still have a lot of CB left from the last smoke, and we love smoked pork chops sooooo much! Try a couple of those----You'll love them!

Bearcarver

BTW: I got that recipe from a consensus of a whole bunch of guys on this forum.


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## bossdogg (Mar 19, 2010)

thanks.  yeah if figured the hickory would be pretty strong.  how many hours should I let the smoke flow?  I have a propane smoker so I can control how much smoke I put to it.


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## Bearcarver (Mar 20, 2010)

Personally, it has been my experience that when smoking bacon, I had no creosote problems, and I have kept my smoke (electric smoker) steady at medium smoke for a good amount of time, with some bursts of heavy smoke. The only time I ever got any bitter taste from smoke was one batch of hickory smoked Salmon. I washed off all of the pieces & dried them & they were fine.
I have put smoke on bacon from 4 hours to 6 hours, and haven't had any problem. I like to put as much smoke as I can on everything. I don't think the length of time hurts anything, but too heavy for too long could. I keep my exhaust vent WIDE OPEN.

BTW: Bossdogg, You got me going----I did go out yesterday & bought 16 pounds of pork loin (two loins). I put them in cure & should be smoking them on the 28th.

BC


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## eman (Mar 20, 2010)

Going to throw my 2 cents in here.
 I also use a variation of shooter ricks cure . I have found that  My CB 
 comes out ALOT better when cured for 10 days instead of the recomended 7 days.
 After 7 days the  loin doesn't seem to be fully cured  thruout the piece of loin . Adding the extra 3 days does the trick.


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## Bearcarver (Mar 20, 2010)

eman,
The temp in your fridge might be too cold for your cure to work properly. It should be about 37 or 38 degrees. Over 40* and the meat could spoil. Under 34* and the cure won't work. When I first started doing bacon, I couldn't figure out how to measure the temp of the meat, because the fridge would vary by as much as 9 degrees. For instance, on at 32*, off at 41*, or maybe on at 30* off at 39*. I didn't know what the actual meat temp was, so I put a bottle of water in the fridge, and inserted my meat probe in the bottle. Now when I brine something, I can hold the water in that bottle at 37* & 38*---no higher & no lower. 
The only thing is, I use a separate fridge for my meats, because when you hold the meat in the fridge to 37* & 38*, you can't keep the freezer in the same unit at 0* the way I like. So I bought a small chest freezer to keep my meats below zero.

Anyway, it depends on how thick you pork loin is, and what temp your curing at. The ones I'm doing now are 2 1/2" thick, so the minimum curing time in my book would be 7 days. I will cure it for 8 days, check it out, and smoke it on the next day. It definitely doesn't hurt to keep it in the cure for a few more days, but not needed, unless the curing temp is too low, or you don't use the right amount of cure.


Hope that helps,
Bearcarver


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## bossdogg (Mar 28, 2010)

I know there is a bacon section but since I started this journey here I will post results and q view here.  
  a 9lb pork loin, mortons tender quick, brown sugar, and a weeks worth of time.  








I cut the loin into three reletively equal sized sections.  I then measured out a tbs of each the brown sugar and tender quick per lb of meat.  so that meant 9 tbs of tender quick and 9 tbs of brown sugar.







I then placed them each one into a gallon baggie and stuck em in my fridge.  each day for the week I would flip the bags over so the cure would get to all sides of the loin.  it actually formed a juice in the bag and I had read to leave the juice in there.  

after a week I took the loins out of the baggie and rinsed them off with cold water.  then soaked the loins in water in the fridge for two hours to leach some salt out.  then drained and let em chill in the fridge till today.  

I got em out and I love pepper bacon so I put olive oil on the outside of one and rubbed coarse ground black pepper on it.  On the second one I had the idea to drizzle maple syrup on the outside of the loin while cooking and then got to thinking it would burn to bad on the outside.  so I mixed up 50/50 apple juice with maple syrup and  injected it in the loin.  the third section I left plain to see which one I would like.

I was using hickory wood for smoke and was smoking at 225.

Here they are just on the smoker after a bit of time  






here they are done.






the ends sliced off to check out the color.  the left one is the injected loin.  the center is the plain and the right is the pepper bacon.  not sure why the left injected one is so much more darker then the other.  all three have pink centers but the injected one is almost ham color.  






pic of the injected one.






of course I tried all three and I like the injected one the most.  the pepper bacon is good but is a bit dried out.  the plain one was dry also.  the injected was still moist.  next time I plan on injecting all of em with applejuice.  it makes a difference.  now they will chill in the fridge and then get sliced tommarow.


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## eman (Mar 28, 2010)

that is the color CB should be . Bright pink like a good ham.
 that is why i am going to a longer cure time this go round. mine comes out half pink and half looking like a pork chop.


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## rstr hunter (Mar 29, 2010)

I wonder if most commercial Canadian Bacon isn't made using Insta-cure#1 which many times helps make a pink color. Don't know, but do know it does that for sausage as a side effect of curing the meat.


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## pops6927 (Mar 29, 2010)

Nope, not impossible at all.  I use a brine method vs. dry cure, just the way I was taught (my dad had a store and cured and smoked anything that moved and if it didn't he'd push it a little... lol!).  I use:
1 gal. water
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup salt, non-iodized.
1 tbsp. DQ Cure #1 (or Instacure #1, but not Tenderquick!  Too much salt!)  You can get DQ Cure from Butcher Packer.

Now, you can modify that with ease; use 1 cup Splenda[emoji]174[/emoji] or equiv. for the sugar
Use 1 cup Splenda[emoji]174[/emoji] Brown sugar mix for the brown sugar
Use a smaller amount of salt; ¼ to ½ cup; also, use kosher salt or sea salt, it's sweeter.

You can pump your loin with brine and soak in brine in fridge for 7 days, or not pump and soak for up to 14 days.  Use a baggie with some water in it to keep it from floating at the top.

Remove from brine, wipe off, do a fry test (but you should not need to soak it in water or potatoes or corn starch or silly putty or anything else, the salt level should be low enough).

Smoke at what you like with what you like, 240° is more than sufficient, cook to an internal of 155° - 160°.  I personally like Mesquite, but I used to smoke Bull Durham's too if that says anything! lol!

Play with it, adjust it, make it your own, just enjoy!


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## joeyiowa (Oct 17, 2016)

Hi all I'm Joe brand new here. 
So I just got my DQ curing salt. 6.25%-propylene gylcol. (Sodium nitrite) so as fate would have it my instructional video disappeared. I have a 10 pound pork loin I want to wet cute into Canadian bacon. Anyone know how to measure this stuff correctly? I know not enough is bad and too much is worse lol.


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