Mike Pusateri shows how he made bacon from pork belly.
The first step is curing the pork belly with a dry cure of salt, sugar, and pink salt (sodium nitrite). The main purpose of the cure is to prevent any bacterial growth on the meat and draw out some water.Homemade baconLet's remember that refrigeration is a relatively new invention. In the past, a big life problem was finding ways to preserve meat for use long after it was killed. Curing by salting, smoking, and drying are methods to prevent meat from spoiling. Making bacon was a way to save the pork belly for later use. Pork belly was also the main ingredient of salt pork, a mainstay of the military diet for centuries.
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Curing your own bacon is way easier than you'd think. One of the most fun parts about the process is coming up with exotic cure flavors. My greatest bacon triumph was inventing truffle bacon by slathering a pork belly in white truffle oil during the curing process. And yes, it's every bit as decadent as it sounds.
Isn't it enough that I bring home the bacon?
And why does it need to be cured? Do we want diseased bacon?
Oh... not that kind of curing... Nevermind. ;D
And I'd like to add: Mmmmmmmmmmm bacon... *drools*
You guys are a little late to the home cured bacon revival party. Michael Ruhlman's excellent book Charcuterie which came out a couple years ago now played a big part in raising awareness that many delicious cured, pickled and otherwise preserved foods can be made safely and easily at home with fantastic results. My favorite is duck magret prosciutto.
my preferred method of makin bacon involves wine, candlelight, and ..oh ..wait, was I saying that out loud?
Howdy Anonymous #3,
I'm the guy that made the bacon. You are right, Ruhlman's Charcuterie book is my bible.
With it, I've made several things including pastrami and Italian sausage. I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in preserving meat.
THis is actually exactly how NOT to make bacon. What you will end up with will be EXTREMELY salty. Yes this method will work, but you will get a much better end product if you *wet brine* your bellies. To do that: get a NON metal container that is large enough to submerge your bellies. Add salt, sugar, salt-peter(optional) to water (about 0.5 to 0.75 cups salt and sugar per gallon) and let that soak for about 4-7 days. 4-5 days is usually pretty good. Dry the bellies. Then let them air over night (in the refrigerator) so that a film of protien/mucus forms on the bellies. I think it's called "pelical" or something similar. That step is really important. THen... smoke yer bellies. Oak, maple, hickory, apple, cherry... pretty much any hardwood works well. After smoking for 2-4 hours cut off the skin. Place in freezer long enough for the now bacon to harden a bit... then slice. If you have a friend with a slicer it is really worth the effort. It's really hard to thin slice slab bacon.
Do we get to watch him make head cheese too?
@ #1 - a friend of mine has made maple bacon, which I think is fairly standard. It's much much better than anything store bought. No surprise.
That said, I'm glad to see the "maker" aspect of BB focus on things like home made foods that one almost always buys from a market. Steampunk is pretty, but you can't eat it :-)
He's starting a fire in a galvanized trash can (for the smoker). This is a huge mistake as the burning zinc (zinc oxide) is poisonous and can cause 'metal fume fever' or 'zinc chills'. Use a charcoal grill or a proper smoker.
Retrojoe,
First, the fire is in the smoker, not in the trash can.
Second, the heat in a smoker is nowhere near the heat required to burn zinc. If I were welding, I'd be very concerned about welding galvanized metal. But a smoker operates between 250-300 F, far below the temperature required to burn or oxidize zinc in the galvanization.
Third, thank you for your concern.
Thirding Ruhlman's Charcuterie book. I just finished a country ham which has been hanging in my garage all winter. It's exquisite.
@#6, no. 'Salt boxing' yer bacon, as it is called in the book Charcuterie, is quite appropriate, it just depends on your belly. And I don't mean *your* belly, I mean the belly you are curing. Of course if you are getting over diarrhea it may still be ambiguous...
Anyway, and I had to say is I've made bacon from pork bellies so thick (Nieman Ranch) it took two or more applications of salt and pink salt to penetrate all the way through.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go tend the cheese I'm making :)
Ditto what everyone else said about the Rhulman book, it's a superb resource and home cured meats are fun and delicious. They also seem exotic and daring, when in truth are very simple. Bacon or the duck proscuitto is literally easier than the simplest pie crust or baked good you can make. Skill level is zero, and the results are well worth the minimal effort.
W/r/t if homemade bacon is better than purchased, it's not even close. Homemade doesn't shrink or curl, it gets crispier and tastes way way way better. Less chemically, less artificial, more bacon-y flavour.
The pancetta from the book is even easier, as it forgos the smoking process, and while not bacon does ensure a steady supply of pasta carbonnara in you dining life.
If you have a Chinese populace, a Chinese butcher will sell pork belly at the same rate Burger King sells Whoppers.
@#12: I disagree. I'm glad you've had success with your method. But I'll bet you a case of beer that anyone who tries salt boxing with a belly like that displayed in the picture above will find it inedible. I grew up just across the river from Smithfield and I've been at this a long time. For the amature/weekend bacon smoker wet brining is far and away easier and produces a much better end product. Unless, of course, you want to hang your bacon off the back porch or soak it in water prior to cooking. Then dry salting is totally appropriate. But in a side by side taste test I re-bet you that case of beer that wet brined will be prefered hands down. So while I've no doubt you've produced fine swine by salt boxing I'll lay odds that the majority of those reading this article and thinking "yeah!! I'll try that this weekend!" will produce bacon they can't and won't eat via that method. I don't know where you live but if you find yourself on the east coast in VA let me know and we can have a cookoff... and drink beer and see which method is ultimately prefered. ;) Then we can argue over the best way to do the smoke. LOL! (cold smoking rules!) This method also works wonderfully for chickens too(except you only brine them overnight).
How most of the bacon you eat is made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0DbcUUO-hI
@#6
Brine cure? Thin slice?
You, Sir or Ma'am, are a bacon heretic and shall be the first against the wall when the bacolution comes.
@#14, oh, IT'S ON!
BACON FIGHT!!!
@Cruftbox
Do you read Ruhlman's blog? Find it here: http://blog.ruhlman.com/
He often links to other great and informative sites/people.
Another book you might enjoy is Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli. He's all about doing things from scratch...making his own aged balsamic vinegar, pressing his own olive oil, doing things the way people in the Italian countryside have been doing them for many, many years. He also has a good charcuterie section in that book and it is ABSOLUTELY worth picking up.
http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Hand-Paul-Bertolli/dp/0609608932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240437356&sr=8-1
If you haven't seen the Sky Full of Bacon podcasts, allow me to recommend those as well: http://skyfullofbacon.com/
They've got a blog, but those podcasts are where it's at. They cover urban foraging in Chicago, a dinner thrown by a few of the better restaurants in Chicago using every conceivable part of of some heritage breed pigs.....
Food like this makes me happy, so I wanted to spread the word.
I'm curing salmon in my fridge at the moment to make Gravlax. It's another surprisingly straightforward process, just sugar, salt, pepper and dill and a few days of flipping. Oh, and about five days of freezing or the parasites will give you various stomach illnesses.
Am I the only one who would actually move TOWARDS the bacon fight fallout zone?
Crispy, please.
I've used the Charcuterie instructions for making bacon, too (I use a Bradley smoker instead of the homemade dealie). My family loves it, and it doesn't seem particularly oversalted. The meat juices form a brine with the cure over the week it sits in the refrigerator, and you rinse it before smoking anyway.
I use wet brining a lot to make meat juicier, but the dry cure works fine for bacon.
I just wanted to also throw my vote behind having more like this posted. I also have really enjoyed the Charcuterie book. Last year I made a ton of the Jagerwurst and Andoullie for the 4th of July. It was the just about the most fun I've had in my life. I want to try bacon, but no longer have a smoker.
No smoker is needed to make bacon. I've made bacon from the directions in Ruhlman's book as well and, as he says, if you don't have a smoker just roast it in the oven ... Don't let the lack of a smoker deter you from enjoying the great pleasure of homemade bacon - however you brine it!
Pork, out.
I INVENTED SMOKING AND YOU SHALL BOW BEFORE ME or else I shall kick thee asses and weenies. The true fifteen commandments (five were broken when that dumb ass Moses dropped one of the tablets) stated that "Thou shalt not maketh bacon unless ye Lord giveth you thy directions. And you have not receiveth thee directions yet. So do not maketh the bacon until I have marketed my brand and then I shall command thee to buy it thee markets." Do not maketh me cometh down from the heavens and kick thee asses and knee thee in thy nuts. So it is said, so let it be done.
After smoking things for 40 years I finally got around to seeing what others are doing. Good job! Just a few comments. Dry curing and wet curing are generically referred to as country and city style respectively. By its nature dry cured products are always saltier. Here's a tip or two. Dry cure thinner bellies and wet cure thicker ones. Also adjust your curing time according to the thickness of the belly. This is an experience thing, but blindly following recipes will lead to the inevitable too-salty-to-eat product. Since this is a bacon blog, here's what I've done in the past. After smoking and chilling, cut a slice from the middle of the slab (the ends are always saltier and not a good test) and fry it up. If it's too salty, cover the slabs with ice water and soak for 4 or 5 hours. Pour off the water and try again. I've had to do this for 2 or 3 cycles in the past and the bacon came out fine. What you don't want to do is soak it until the slab gets water logged or you remove so much salt it spoils quickly.