Made HUGE error! Cut off fat cap on Pork Belly

[smokindave1976]

Not a rookie to smoking ribs but rookie with Pork Belly. No laughing please lol....For whatever reason I cut off the majority of the fat cap on my Pork belly to make bacon. As of today, it's sitting in a wet brine and it calls for about 3 days of curing time. After cure, I will smoke it. I need some advise on how I can still make good bacon with 95% of the fat cap missing lol. Do I cure less or more time Same time? Smoke it a different way ? Any input will put me in a better mood. Thanks

 

[SmokinEdge]

Just roll with it as is. Plenty of of fat in a belly. Not sure what curing process you are using though.

 

[smokindave1976]

Just roll with it as is. Plenty of of fat in a belly. Not sure what curing process you are using though.

I'm using dark brown sugar, prague salt, kosher salt, pepper, maple syrup and distilled water

 

[JckDanls 07]

Not sure what curing process you are using though.

Yea... 3 days sounds like a very short time...

 

[smokindave1976]

Just roll with it as is. Plenty of of fat in a belly. Not sure what curing process you are using though.

I'm using dark brown sugar, prague salt, kosher salt, pepper, maple syrup and distilled

Yea... 3 days sounds like a very short time...

 

[smokindave1976]

2.8 days to be exact lol. Not sure if you can see the pic I sent

 

[SmokinEdge]

2.8 days to be exact lol. Not sure if you can see the pic I sent

I would let it go 5 days for sure and 10 days is better yet. The cure recipe looks ok, but the time is short.

 

[smokindave1976]

I would let it go 5 days for sure and 10 days is better yet. The cure recipe looks ok, but the time is short.

Sounds good. I was reading somewhere else that if the fat cap is cut off the cure would work quicker as opposed to working slower where the cap has to absorb more liquid. Not sure if that's legit. Thanks for your input. Any Good pork belly recipes on here that you would recommend?

 

[SmokinEdge]

Sounds good. I was reading somewhere else that if the fat cap is cut off the cure would work quicker as opposed to working slower where the cap has to absorb more liquid. Not sure if that's legit. Thanks for your input. Any Good pork belly recipes on here that you would recommend?

Salt and cure move through diffusion and osmosis. This requires moisture (water in the meat naturally) meat contains about 75% water, where fat contains about 10% water or less.

So salt and cure do move slower through fat. This is much different cure rate than lean whole muscle. Always allow more time for belly or other fatty whole muscle cuts, and generally for any cut. In the end it’s just better tasting and more consistent.

I and many others here dry cure with a simple recipe.

To meat weight,
1.5% pure salt
.25% cure #1 (Prague #1)
.5 - 1% sugar.

This is a general and proven cure method. There are variations but what we generally use just plain works.

 

[indaswamp]

X2 for rolling....

 

[bigfurmn]

I have no clue about any of it but now I'm very interested to how this turns out!

 

[smokindave1976]

How do you judge that the curing is working? Firmness? My belly feels firm all around already and today is the 2nd day of wet curing. Any input?

 

[SmokinEdge]

How do you judge that the curing is working? Firmness? My belly feels firm all around already and today is the 2nd day of wet curing. Any input?

Firmness is from the salting. It’s how it works. Trust the process.