Making bacon at home

I would appreciate any thoughts or favorite recipes .

I thought this was a revival of that NSFW sub-forum.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of years because, once you’ve done it, you don’t want store bought bacon again, at least my wife doesn’t.

Cure your pork belly for a week in the fridge. Use prague powder #1, salt and any other seasonings you like. You can use pepper, sugar, brown sugar, anything you like. There are plenty of recipes online. I go pretty basic. Prague powder, salt, garlic salt, brown sugar, pepper. The amount of seasoning you use will be determined by the size of the pork belly. I have 3 gallon zip-lock bags. They hold a whole pork belly.

After it has spent a week in your fridge with the dry rub on, smoke it. Again, hickory, apple, whatever kind of wood you like. Experiment. We like hickory.

Smoke it at 225 for 2.5 hours. You don’t need to “cook” it in the traditional sense. You’re going to cook it on the stove top later.

Let it cool and then put it back in the fridge for a day.

Break out your slicer and have at it. Cut it however you like, thick or thin. We package the bacon into roughly 6 ounce seal-a-meal packages and store them in the freezer. We tend to cut off the ends and maybe some other imperfect parts and store them for use like salt pork. They can be used for anything from baked beans to lardons for beef bourguinon.

Good luck.

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Put aluminum foil on cookie sheet. Put bacon on aluminum foil. Bake at 400 degrees until its as crispy as you want. May have to flip one time. Best way I’ve found to cook bacon and no mess.

I just did this and it turned out well. Combined learnings from a few YouTube videos and then just went for it.

  1. Ordered a pork belly from Tails and Trotters. Based in Portland and they’ll ship to you (given WA state) for $25. Toss in some pork chops while you’re at it, but be careful with the ribs.

  2. Broke the belly down into two slabs for bacon, burn ends and then saved the skin for cracklins. Note: Belly needs to fit into a one quart bag.

  3. Base recipe for the rub was 1 pt kosher salt to 1 pt sugar. I riffed a bit and added pepper to one and then molasses to the other. Drop it in a ZipLock bag and store for a week. There was a bunch of discussion in videos and online about adding prague salts - I went with the YouTube guy that said “I don’t use curing salt because it’s not going to be around long enough to worry about preserving.” He was correct.

  4. After a week, take the bacon out of the fridge, wash and wipe down, then smoke at 200-225 until an internal temp of 150.

  5. I sliced mine thick, using a knife (rather than a slicer). Saved the last 3 slices’ worth for lardons, rather than risk cutting my fingers off. Ended up using in a black-eyed peas dish.

Much, much easier than i would have expected.
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Thanks everybody for your thoughts, Andrew , those look great and I like the idea of no pink salt.

FWIW, prague powder #2 has nitrates. Prague powder #1 does not.

I’ve never used anything but sugar, salt and pepper. And I use several X more sugar than salt. If your first batch is too salty, you can use it as a guanciale/pancetta substitute in carbonara or other dishes calling for salty pork.

Make sure you flip the bag(s) over daily to get even coverage from the rub. I also prefer to put it back into the fridge for 24 hours, after curing is done and the pork belly has then been rinsed multiple times with cold water. The “pellicle” that develops as the belly dries in the fridge is supposed to be more receptive to absorbing the smoke flavoring.

As mentioned by several folks, you’ll never want to go back to store bought bacon again.

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Cooking bacon or turning pork into bacon?

Pork into bacon

Good advice above. I’ve been making it for a few years now and we haven’t bought bacon since then. We like it with the skin on. I buy the whole slab and cure it in turkey brining bags or 2.5 gallon Ziplocks you can order online. Put them on a cookie sheet to catch any leaks and for ease of transport. Flip every day to redistribute cure. The ends will be saltier and smokier, so I save those for beans or greens.

Chill the bacon after smoking for cleaner slices. If you have a FoodSaver, divvy up the slices to the portion size of your liking and freeze.

Enjoy!

Two points I’d echo from above - left out flipping the bags over, which is important and Christine’s point on temp when cutting is a great one as well. Exponentially easier than when it has warmed up.

I went with your recipe, and added maple syrup and bourbon!

I do a batch about once a year and freeze it. Having a vacuum sealer is helpful both for the curing and the bagging up for freezing part. I use Rhulman’s recipe most of the time and have had good luck so far. It only takes an hour or so on the smoker after it’s cured (approx a week, flipped over daily). Pink curing salt is also essential for bacon, both for color and flavor, without it it’s really just marinated pork belly, also delicious, but not the same thing. Another thing I’ve found it that rinsing it VERY well after the curing part is important, otherwise it can easily come out pretty salty.

I’ve really liked the recipe from Amazingribs. It works every time and gives very tasty bacon. I have almost always used the maple recipe which turns out very good. I typically cut the pink salt a little though

Smoking this morning, will report back

Do you smoke fat side up or just flip half way thru?

the side that had the skin on it (I remove that) I normally keep up the whole time.

Thanks Matt, that’s the way I was leaning [cheers.gif]

Get the bourbon out and do it! Just make sure you wash and wipe it before you put it on!