Bacon - A 3 part exposé - Film at 11

Being on the road is a good way to be patient when making something like bacon. You can't poke and prod curing meat over a distance 430 miles in person. You have to do it by proxy. In this instance the person tending my pups obliged me in turning the belly on Humpday. But I am jumping ahead... A lot ahead.

Bacon:
Wiki says - a cut of meat taken from the sides, belly, or back of a pig that has been cured, smoked, or both.
Websters says - the back and sides of the hog, salted and dried or smoked, usually sliced thin and fried for food.
I says - one of the most versatile meat products on the planet, and not overly complicated to make.

I followed the recipe from a Charcuterie mostly too the letter. I diverge at the end of the process. Don't worry I share the details

The first thing I had to have to make-a da bacon was uncured pork belly. Not as easy to find as you might imagine. After a couple weeks of procrastination and online searching, I was finally able to procure a fine belly from Danny, proprietor of DW Farms in Pulaski TN. I called him during the week and he agreed to bring a selection of bellies of various sizes for me to evaluate. Like I have a clue about pork bellies...

I picked the big one. A little over 14 pounds. Danny had it in a cooler, frozen for the trip from his farm to the Saturday CSA location he has at a Nashville restaurant, where he also provides pig, albeit on a larger scale.

I took my plastic wrapped belly and put in my cooler for the much shorter trip home. Maniacal laughter rang out as I drove the 8 miles.

14 pounds of frozen pig does not thaw quickly, and I didn't want to damage the meat in any way so, I followed the old advise to thaw in the refrigerator. Overnight fridge thawing might work for a 12 ounce steak but not so much for this much meat. It probably didn't help that the fridge in question is extra cold. All told it was 4 days to thaw the pork, but once it was ready so was I...
NOT...! no pink salt (sodium nitrite with pink coloring added to distinguish it from table salt). Luckily for me, I was having lunch soon with a friend who just happened to be sitting on a stash of the pink stuff. She floated me 75mg, which will be paid back in the form of ready to cook bacon. Now I had pork and pink and a couple hours to get started.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of "Basic Cure", which I had to produce using pink salt, kosher salt and sugar.

I am not going to post the exact proportions and here's why... I didn't write the book and if I post everything you need to know to execute the recipe then I am basically thieving from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, which would be BAD. Want the recipe??? Go buy the book, it's worth it. Back to the cure.

Salt - Kosher, Sugar - white, Pink Salt - well it's ummm pink.

Mix until... mixed? How about uniformly pale pink. Not too hard so far.

The next step in this little bacon makin venture, was to deal with the belly. It was finally thawed and ready to be divided and trimmed and in general fussed over.

TADA!

For a little perspective, it's sitting on a half sheet tray. Lotta meat. Enough for 2 recipes... Stay turned.

I portioned the belly into 3 roughly equal portions.

I picked one to reserve for that other project I mentioned and proceeded to apply the cure to the remainder. 1/4 cup per flitch (that's what you call a side of un-sliced bacon. Seriously... You can't make this stuff up.)

Within moments of applying the cure, I started to see it in action. Moisture was already being drawn out of the meat.

Now I am caught up with myself and the start of this post.

The hardest part of a project like this for me, is the wait... This time I had help being patient. I had to spend the week in Charlotte working. I asked my step-brother, who was kindly attending my pooches for the week, to flip the enormous 3 gallon zip top bags, holding the future bacon, on Wednesday.

Upon my arrival home Friday evening, I was pleased to find firm flesh in the bags. MR advises that it should only take week to cure a belly but not all belly are created equal and a thicker belly might take longer to cure. Firm flesh means competed cure, squishy flesh means not so much completed.

Mine seemed fine. Next steps, rinse, pat dry and cook.

This is where I diverge. Country bacon is best smoked in my opinion, and considering that my smoker is not a cold smokers it seemed an ideal method to cook the nascent bacon to 150° as directed. To that end I gathered up the necessary tools and headed out into the backyard.

The next 2 pictures are what I will now refer to as my Bacon Meez.

Rinsed belly, and probe thermometer, ever so sun dappled.

Hickory chips, soaked in water for the better part of an hour.

Bacon Meez ready, I lit up the fire box on my grill/smoker, and after a vigorous cleaning of the grates, I placed the belly in the path of the smoke.

Again, I am forced to wait while bacon transforms one more time. How long... Well if you do it in a 200° oven like the book says, then about 2 hours. Seeing as the temperature control on a charcoal fired grill/smoker is less that pin point accurate, I would estimate that it took twice the recipes stated time, but that's okay with me, I got to hang with my dawgs. No really... after a week away form home I was ready for some pooch time.

So what does 4 hours in the smoker get you? This...

Have you ever had grilled bacon, really fresh grilled bacon, thick cut fresh grilled bacon? Oh god... It's...

Grilled Bacon for pete's sake!!! do I need to say anything more!?

On that subject, I don't think so, but there is a final step. The newly smoked bacon needs to chill. I recommend stashing it in the fridge and going to dinner.

Later when you are back in your kitchen you can slice off a rasher or 3 and cook em up to see if you can give Oscar Meyer a run for their money.

I can hardly wait for a truly perfect tomato to pair with this bacon for the ultimate in BLT joy.

I don't know what else to say after that particular bit of food pron... Scandalous! and yummy.

The next recipe in the book is pancetta...

Coming soon, to a computer screen near you.

Cheers

Chris