Homemade Sausage Making

Doug, NorCal Kid and ssorllih are both spot on with the proper cure amounts.

I think that my method is pretty reliable. This came out of my smoker this morning.

Hickory smoke gives such fine color.
These slabs show the distinct muscles near the skin on a pork shoulder.

Beautiful stuff ol' timer! Wow.

ssorllih, I think you and Norcal Kid have an IN to hog jowls. Those are beautiful.

Doug, Those pieces are the skin side slabs for butts. Jowls are much less lean meat.

Ross - Then as a beginner, I can assume that the meat with most fat streaked through the meat is best for bacon? Is that the reason Guanciale is so popular for bacon ?

My jowls are still in the freezer and have not made any bacon from them as yet. I am
freezing -10 F for 15 days before making any bacon from it.

The side of pork that I have used for making bacon - when sliced and fried, did not crisp
like I like bacon. Could that be from too much moisture in the bacon ? When I removed the bacon from the cold smoker I soaked them in water to remove excessive salt - then hang
them with a fan blowing on them for several hours. Should I fan them for a longer length of time?

Doug I always put sliced bacon in a cold skillet and then turn the fire on. If it releases enough water to stew it is very wet. Try slicing some and laying it out to dry in the fridge for a couple of days, don't allow it to get as hard as wet leather. Thin slices fry crispier than thick slices and too much sugar in the cure tends to burn before the bacon is crisp. I have posted my pictures for cutting a bacon slab from a butt and I have explained my cure schedule before but I will give it again. I weigh the meat and on a kilograam basis I add 18 grams of kosher salt 2.5 grams of cure #1 and about 15 grams of sugar. I mix that and moisten it with some molassas and rub it all over the slab and place it in a zipper bag. I turn it ever day and in the case of these pieces for about 12 days. The advantage being the amount of salt is limited so I can't over cure if I am called away. At the end of the cure cycle I hang the bacon slab without rinsing and let it dry in the fridge for a day or two or three. Then It goes into my smokerfor several hours in this case I started late morning and allowed the fire to go out about 11 o clock that night. I brought it in the next morning, the night was very cool.
This may be useful for you. http://s1112.photobucket.com/user/nanss ... f.mp4.html

Thanks Ross, I'll do that.

Ross - Norcal Kid
I went back to the market where the butcher was holding large jowls for me. Out of the 10 - I selected 5 large ones - I tried to match my purchase to the photos offered here. So, the
jowls I selected look a lot like Ross's skin side of slabs for butts. I think I made some good selections because these jowls look a whole lot better than the side of pork or bellys that I have been using prior to my learning about jowls. I butchered 1 and 1/2 pigs in my living room on a Costco folding table a while back - I did not know what a jowl was and I can't remember how I cut that area up. I just made large pieces of meat into smaller pieces. And those pigs were Mangalica pigs! If Gulyas witnessed my work he would most likely groan.

Doug

Doug this is a very useful web site: http://porcine.unl.edu/porcine2005/page ... acilis.swf

Ross
That is a precious site! Thank you

Hello All again,

I tried the 2% salt and 0,25% cure #1 as a rub. Per da gurus.
Cured for 7 days but it was flacid and did not look like bacon
So, I let it cure for 4 more days - 11 days total.
It did not smell like bacon or taste like bacon.
The after taste left in my mouth and tongue was a little "heat"

My next batch will be the same salt and cure percentages but I will make a wet cure this time to see if it gets any better. I will pan fry the fresh cracked black pepper prior to rubbing onto
the bacon in hopes of getting more black pepper flavor (not necessarily for the "heat".

This is fun but is also frustrating. I have made a ton of bacon and not one batch came out to my satisfaction. I'll keep trying.

Hi Doug,
Try out Big Guy's cure recipe. It's on the forum. I like it as well as all the others and it's easy.
Never had a dud batch yet.
Jan.