[USA] Makin' Bacon

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Dave Zac
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Bacon

Post by Dave Zac » Sun Apr 25, 2010 20:36

I started an 8.5 pound pork belly this morning for homemade honey maple pepper bacon. It will cure all week and I will smoke it with Hickory next Saturday. The maple syrup was made by me in February, the honey is from a local friend's apiary.

This is the belly cut in half and ready to rub
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This is rubbed with cure and ready to bag.
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The recipe was provided from your very own Chuckwagon
Chuckwagon wrote:No one on the planet makes bacon better than the English. In fact, a couple of hundred years ago, some wild English cowboy wrangler named Alan Davidson wrote the "Oxford Companion To Food" containing a recipe for maple flavored bacon. I`ve always suspected that the infamous bacon-wrapped ham (later called "Schinkenspeck" by the Germans), was developed during the seventeenth century in the British Isles. I`ve learned over the years, that sugar (or dextrose), does not offset or counter salt - it supports and balances it. The British, it seems, have always been aware of this secret and indeed, English maple-flavored hams are sweeter than many others that tend to border on sort of a savory essence. In eastern Utah, we hand-rub fresh honey into ham as it cures for even more sweet flavor. We see beehives all along the upper Green River and of course, the best honey comes from the little "sons of bees" found near the shorelines of clover meadows near Vernal. Here`s the recipe that works for us - I stole it from Rytek Kutas way back when.

25 lbs. pork belly @38°F.
1-cup kosher (non-iodized) salt
1/4 cup Prague Powder #1
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tspn. freshly cracked black pepper

Cut and square belly slabs into a convenient size for hanging in your smoker. Good bacon should have equal proportions of fat and meat. Stir the ingredients together until they are well combined and the mixture is smooth. Be sure to use only real maple syrup. Don`t even think about the imitation stuff! Place the bellies into a shallow, lipped, non-reactive pan and hand rub the cure well into the meat. Keep the meat cold as possible while you distribute the cure evenly. Continue rubbing the cure-mixture into the meat and fat of the belly for a few minutes. Next, allow the bellies to cure in the pan, refrigerated, or in convenient, large, 2-gallon, Ziploc plastic bags. Place the slabs belly side up for two days while the salt draws moisture from the meat and a brine develops. By the third day, if the brine has not quite covered the meat, add a little water - up to two quarts if necessary. It is important to allow this brine to remain in contact with the bacon as it cures. Inspect the progress daily and redistribute the cure by turning the bellies over. The cure rate is one day per pound - up to 12 days. In other words, a ten pound bacon is removed on the tenth day, while a 14 lb. bacon should be removed on the twelfth day. Next, wash the bacon well and scrub away all the surface salt and sticky maple or honey residue. It is important NOT to soak the bacon at this point. Pat it dry and hang it up to dry completely while you pre-heat your smokehouse to 140° F. Smoke the bacon over a drip pan in hickory smudge until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 130 °F. Finally, lower the smokehouse temperature to 115° F. and continue to smoke the bacon until it blooms.
Now is the time to remove the skin if so desired. Simply slide a long knife blade beneath the skin and draw it slowly, leaving as much fat on the bacon as possible. Use the cured, salted, smoked skin to flavor stews, soups, beans, etc. Wrapped in plastic, refrigerate the bacon 24 hours then cut slices extra thick! Cooked outdoors on a griddle, it is pretty hard to beat. If you MUST eat inside, remember that professional chefs often use a hot oven to cook bacon evenly, preventing it from curling.
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Honey rubbed maple flavored bacon

Post by Chuckwagon » Sun Apr 25, 2010 21:25

Hi Dave, Thank you for sharing my recipe with our Polish friends. I'm not sure how they flavor a pork belly. Poland does not have hickory but they sure do have Alder. But to tell you the truth, I've never tried anything but Applewood and Hickory on bacon. Have you? Maybe Chudziak knows how to prepare bacon better than we do! Anyway, you and I will keep smokin' hickory bacon after it is rubbed with honey and maple eh?
Hey Dave, you mentioned that you were making Canadian Bacon. I hope our Polish friends know what this is. If not, they could certainly pm either one of us eh? If you smoke-bake it to only 150 degrees F. (66 degrees C. ), it turns out perfect. When it cools, goodness... be sure to roll it in FRESHLY cracked black pepper. Let it stand overnight refrigerated for best flavor.

Sons Of Bees Bacon
Honey Rubbed, Maple Flavored, Dry-Cured Bacon

All along the upper Green River in eastern Utah, we see beehives and of course the best honey comes from the little "sons of bees" found near the shorelines of clover meadows near Vernal. Cowboys hand-rub fresh honey into ham as it cures for even more sweet flavor. Here`s the recipe that works for us - I stole it from Rytek Kutas way back when.

25 lbs. pork belly @38°F.
1-cup kosher (non-iodized) salt
1/4 cup Prague Powder #1
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tspn. freshly cracked black pepper

Cut and square belly slabs into a convenient size for hanging in your smoker. Good bacon should have equal proportions of fat and meat. Stir the ingredients together until they are well combined and the mixture is smooth. Be sure to use only real maple syrup. Don`t even think about the imitation stuff! Place the bellies into a shallow, lipped, non-reactive pan and hand rub the cure well into the meat. Keep the meat cold as possible while you distribute the cure evenly. Continue rubbing the cure-mixture into the meat and fat of the belly for a few minutes. Next, allow the bellies to cure in the pan, refrigerated, or in convenient, large, 2-gallon, Ziploc plastic bags. Place the slabs belly-side up for two days while the salt draws moisture from the meat and a brine develops. By the third day, if the brine has not quite covered the meat, add a little water - up to two quarts if necessary. It is important to allow this brine to remain in contact with the bacon as it cures. Inspect the progress daily and re-distribute the cure by turning the bellies over. The cure rate is one day per pound - up to 12 days. In other words, a ten pound bacon is removed on the tenth day, while a 14 lb. bacon should be removed on the twelfth day. Next, wash the bacon well and scrub away all the surface salt and sticky maple or honey residue. It is important NOT to soak the bacon at this point. Pat it dry and hang it up to dry completely while you pre-heat your smokehouse to 140° F. Smoke the bacon over a drip pan in hickory smudge until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 130 °F. Finally, lower the smokehouse temperature to 115° F. and continue to smoke the bacon until it blooms.
Now is the time to remove the skin if so desired. Simply slide a long knife blade beneath the skin and draw it slowly, leaving as much fat on the bacon as possible. Use the cured, salted, smoked skin to flavor stews, soups, beans, etc. Wrapped in plastic, refrigerate the bacon 24 hours then cut slices extra thick! Cooked outdoors on a griddle, it is pretty hard to beat. If you MUST eat inside, remember that professional chefs often use a hot oven to cook bacon evenly, preventing it from curling.

Note by Moderator: This recipe for a 25lb batch of smoked bacon calls for 1/4 cup of cure #1, which is way over the USDA allowable limit. 1/4 cup is equal to 12 teaspoons, weighing 72 grams which works out to 397ppm. That is more than triple the allowable level of ingoing sodium nitrite of 120 ppm for bacon. If you are preparing bacon using this recipe, please adjust accordingly.

Best Wishes Pioneer! I sure wish you were sharin' my campfire tonight! (on the north shore of the Green River)
Chuckwagon
____________________

PS. What is keeping you in Bristol, New York. Are you in a rural gorgeous green place? Why don't you come to Utah, saddle my horse, strap on a six-gun, and go hunting with me in the Uintahs!
Another PS. Do you actually make your own maple syrup? Wow! That is impressive! Can you tell us a little about it?
Last edited by Chuckwagon on Sun Jan 25, 2015 06:31, edited 3 times in total.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Post by Dave Zac » Mon Apr 26, 2010 01:31

PS. What is keeping you in Bristol, New York. Are you in a rural gorgeous green place? Why don't you come to Utah, saddle my horse, strap on a six-gun, and go hunting with me in the Uintahs!
Sometimes I'm not too sure what keeps us here. My youngest son is still in college only 30 minutes away. For now he keeps us here. We have 22 acres on Hickory Hill Farm and we don't see a house near us. Our view is down the Bristol Valley and in the fall it is absolutely gorgeous. Spring and summer is green and lush. Our forest is Maple, Hickory, Oak and White Pine. We call where we live "mountains" because there is a ski resort just on the other side of the "mountain" from us. But really they don't know "mountains" like you do Chuckwagon. Your view of the Salt Lake Range is one of the most amazing anywhere. I have seen it! :lol:
Another PS. Do you actually make your own maple syrup? Wow! That is impressive! Can you tell us a little about it?
I started making maple syrup a few years ago just for something to try. Right now I tap about 15 sugar maple and red maple trees in early to mid February. You want to wait until the days turn sunny and over 40 degrees F and the nights fall back below 32 F. That is when the sap flows the best. I live on a hill so I collect the sap though a series of tubes. My "laterals" collect a series of tapped trees and run to a "mainline". The mainline runs to a collection tank at my barn. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup and you can expect to get about 15 gallons of sap per tap in a season. So I can expect to get about 225 gallons of sap and turn that into about 5 or so gallons of syrup per season.

I have a homemade "evaporator" to boil the sap. I actually just turned over an old livestock watering trough and cut two square openings in the "top" (old bottom) and put 2 large lasagna pans into the openings and made a door on the front to load wood. Once I have a good hot fire I pour the sap into the pans and boil boil boil, adding more sap as the pans evaporate. I will usually start in the morning and boil til afternoon. I can make about one gallon in 8 hours.

Every year we have a syrup party so friends can come over to learn about making syrup and drink lots of my homemade wines. Another story for another time :shock: I also make Kielbasa and serve them the finest sausage many of them have ever eaten!! They leave full of wine and sausage and with some Hickory Hill maple syrup to put on their pancakes the next morning.

Dave Zac

I'll try to find pictures of my tiny operation to share.
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Post by chudziak » Mon Apr 26, 2010 11:29

Chuckwagon wrote:Maybe Chudziak knows how to prepare bacon better than we do!
Now ,I don't :grin: I think each way is good because it allows for a little different flavor.When it comes to the type of wood ,alder or beech ( lat. Fagus) will be good. Usually I hold bacon in a brine ( i.e. water + the nitrited salt but In Poland, the nitrited salt cure named " Peklosól " is available at 0.6% nitrite,) then smoke and after parboil
Dave Zac wrote:I started making maple syrup a few years ago just for something to try.
It' very interesting because we can only buy maple syrup and it is'nt popular in Poland .
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Post by Dave Zac » Sat May 01, 2010 01:28

The belly is in the smoker. Been in for about 4 hours. Internal temp is 120F. It should be done in an hour or so. I'll get some pics in the morning after a good bloom.
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Post by chudziak » Sat May 01, 2010 23:28

It's after midnight , at least in Poland :lol: and where the promised pictures :?:
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Post by Dave Zac » Sun May 02, 2010 02:23

chudziak wrote:It's after midnight , at least in Poland :lol: and where the promised pictures :?:
Sorry...bacon came out last night and into the fridge overnight. All good intentions of photos. Today was too busy to even slice the bacon. I did however make 5 lbs of gloucestershire sausage, 5 lbs of breakfast sausage, and 5 lbs of frankfurters. The franks are in the smoker now. I will post photos of all tomorrow. Promise. It's almost 10 pm here and I am shot...cocktail time! :lol:

Dave
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Post by Chuckwagon » Sun May 02, 2010 03:08

Ok Zacharias! Where in the world are you finding all the energy to do all that? I think Chudziak or Siara must be sneaking over to help you. :lol:
You didn't say whether or not you were pleased with the way your bacon turned out. Did you get a nice color on it? Did you stop at IMT 130deg.F. then turn your SHT down a bit to bloom the meat? What about the skin? The ideal time to remove it is after the cooking has loosened up the subcutaneous fat a bit before it cools.
Best wishes, Chuckwagon
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Post by Dave Zac » Sun May 02, 2010 19:33

Chuckwagon wrote:Ok Zacharias! Where in the world are you finding all the energy to do all that? I think Chudziak or Siara must be sneaking over to help you. :lol:
You didn't say whether or not you were pleased with the way your bacon turned out. Did you get a nice color on it? Did you stop at IMT 130deg.F. then turn your SHT down a bit to bloom the meat? What about the skin? The ideal time to remove it is after the cooking has loosened up the subcutaneous fat a bit before it cools.
Best wishes, Chuckwagon
My wife is in Arizona visiting daughter and new grand baby. That is how I have time this weekend. This has however, devoured my time after packaging today.

I was pretty happy with all products. The bacon I hit 130deg. F and took it out, wrapped in plastic and put in fridge for 2 nights. The bellies I purchased recently came with the skin already off so I didn't have the opportunity save.

Pretty good color on the belly
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Four plates full of sliced bacon...2 pounds each.
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The sliced bacon looks good. Nice smoke flavor from Hickory
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A few farm fresh eggs (less than one hour fresh) and bacon and it's time for breakfast
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Canadian bacon smoked with streaky bacon. Didn't cook long enough and I feel like the brine wasn't strong enough with salt for my taste. I will be sure to cook well before eating.
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And the sausages...this is Gloucester. I think I'm not a big fan of breadcrumbs in my sausage. The flavor is really good though and very moist. I'll have this for supper today.
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Breakfast sausage stuffed in sheep casing
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And Franks from Rytek Kutas recipe provided to me from Chuckwagon. First time I made an "emulsified" product. Lots of work but worth it. They smoked for 1 1/2 hours and then into the oven at 170deg F until reaching an internal temp of 150. Plunged into ice water and refrigerated overnight. Delicious product. I finished in the oven because my smoker is in my barn and I didn't want to keep walking to check on them at 10:00 last night. I think these Franks would be good without smoking too. I guess you would then leave out the cure 1?? I think next time I would stuff them into a hog casing instead of a sheep casing. I have made Kielbasa before and stuffed in hog casing and wished it was stuffed into larger product the taste is so delicious.
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Next up today is cutting some firewood for next winter and then I am going to make some Dandelion wine. I picked the dandelion flowers yesterday...hopefully enough of a 5 gallon batch of wine :shock:

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Post by Chuckwagon » Mon May 03, 2010 04:06

Congratulations gandpa! Boy or girl? Dave, you are truly a craftsman! Those sausages are exquisite. The bacon is beautiful, and the franks look terrific. The inside looks moist and delicious judging from the open one. Ol' Rytek didn't think much of rusk in sausage either. He said nothing belonged inside a casing but meat and a little salt and pepper. How strong is your brine for the Canadian Bacon? Wow, all that good work is making me hungry.

Best wishes, Chuckwagon
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Another round of bacon

Post by Dave Zac » Sun Nov 14, 2010 15:53

I am starting a new batch of bacon today. Actually, two batches. Pork belly and I am trying a side of lamb belly.

Both will be Chuckwagon's world famous Honey Maple Pepper Bacon. The pork is 10 pounds and the lamb is 3 pounds. Both were rubbed early this morning and are in the fridge for a week.

Pictures to follow smoking.

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Post by atcNick » Sun Nov 14, 2010 16:46

Nice!!! Can't wait to see pictures!!
-Nick
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Post by Chuckwagon » Mon Nov 15, 2010 00:06

Dave for President in 2012! :lol:
Best wishes, Chuckwagon
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Post by TxBigRed » Fri Nov 26, 2010 00:00

Here's 2 bellies I did a little while ago. I used Morton's Sugar cure, I think the next ones I will just pump with brine/cure. I soaked them in water before smoking to remove some of the salt. I thought they turned out pretty good.

Dave

After the cure and into the smoker:
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After smoking:
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Ready to slice:
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Some of it sliced..and a snack for the chef!!

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Post by steelchef » Fri Nov 26, 2010 06:37

Wonderful job Dave! I wish that I had the presense of mind to take more pictures. None of mine would have equalled yours though.
Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
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