How to smoke your own bacon

[MoonshineBen]

Hey all

Loving some of the BBQ discussions going on here. I know a lot of you are trying smoking for the first time, and I know that everyone loves bacon, so I'm republishing here my method for smoking your own (originally on the Moonshine BBQ blog). Honestly, you will never buy it from the shop again after this.

There are two things you should know before you start. Firstly, it’s a process that takes about a week, depending on your patience. Secondly, the flavour is amazing, but much stronger than anything you will buy at a supermarket, so think about how much smoke flavour you like.

The ingredients themselves are pretty simple:

• 1 kg of Pork belly, skinless (this will give you streaky bacon but you can also use a whole piece of loin for middle bacon)
• 3 TBS salt
• 5 TBS brown sugar
• 2 TBS pepper (we used Moonshine BBQ Pepper mix, but black pepper works just as fine)
• 1 tsp Prague Powder #1 (pink curing salt)

Some points on the ingredients:

• Make sure the pork belly is skinless, as you want the cure to penetrate the meat, and the skin will stop that from happening. Ask you butcher to take the skin off for you. I made the mistake with my first one of doing it myself and made a mess of it. That said, it still made awesome crackling. But I digress – make sure you still get the skin from your butcher….

• What on earth is Prague Powder #1? Well, it’s a special curing salt (sometimes called Pink Curing Salt), comprised of sodium chloride and sodium nitrite. You don’t need much of it in the mix, but it’s an essential part of the cure. You can buy it cheap online, I get mine from www.countrybrewer.com.au

Once you have all of these ingredients, the first part of the process is pretty simple.

1. Mix all of the cure ingredients together in a bowl
2. Lay out the pork belly on tray (to catch all the cure), pat it dry with some paper towel and sprinkle half the mix over it and rub it in, making sure it’s all covered. Flip the belly over and repeat on the other side.
3. Once you’ve given it a good coating, get a large ziplock bag, put the meat in and any excess cure, zip seal it and pop it in the fridge.

Now comes the part that requires patience.

For the next 5-7 days, you’re going to flip the belly once each day. You’ll notice that there is a lot of liquid forming in the bag, this is the cure working to draw it out. Make sure each day you turn it that you massage the bag to work the liquid and cure in.

At the end of day 7 (preferably, but if you’re impatient, 5 will do), take the meat out of the bag and rinse it off. You want to get the excess cure off the skin, and rinse as much off as you can.

Pat it dry with some paper towel and pop it on a rack in the fridge (put something under it to catch drips), uncovered, overnight. You want to use the cold air flow in the fridge to dry out the belly even more.

Next day, get the belly out of the fridge and bring it up to room temperature.

While it’s doing that, fire up your smoker. I’ve read many temperatures to get it to, but anywhere between 175F – 200F will be OK. I use hickory wood. Pop the meat on the rack, or if you have a smoker with hooks, by all means hang the piece of belly. I also add hot water to the water pan in my smoker. If you're using hickory chips in a smoker box on a gas BBQ, make sure you soak them for half an hour before hand.

Smoke it for 3 hours, until it has an internal temp of 150F (use a thermometer with a probe, go in through the side until it meets the middle of the meat). Depending on how hot you’re running your smoker, it may take more than 3 hours. The meat should also get to a beautiful mahogany colour.

Once it’s at temp, take it off the smoker and let it cool to room temp. Then wrap it, or pop in an airtight container, and back in the fridge overnight. This will help it firm up just that little bit more.

When you’re ready to eat it, slice the cooked ends of the meat off (with the grain), and then slice bacon in long strips. It’s a thing of beauty when you cut through it and see all that beautiful cured pork.

Cook and serve however you like yours. Note that because of the low water content in it, it will crisp up much quicker than anything you buy from the shop. Start it in a cold pan and it will burn less.

Oh, and the best bit? Cut those slices as thick as you like….

[MoonshineBen]

@Andy_Mann sorry for the delayed reply mate. It can be done both ways, the prague powder is really the key. The cure itself does largely take care of it, but you use a different one depending on cold or hot smoking. Rather than me prattling on here, one of the best resoruces I have found for the science of curing and smoking meats is Amazing Ribs, specifically these two posts:

http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/making_bacon_from_scratch.html

http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/curing_meats.html

[Andy_Mann]

@MoonshineBen mate, last night was a late one for me, I was a veritable BBQ Packman feasting on information from that site.

Thanks for the links, I've now got my go to BBQ & Smoking reference library.

I tip my hat to Meathead & the site developers too, so much info on a vast array of subjects, yet finding stuff is a breeze. Take note Bunnings.

The hardware in the US is something else, so just as well I don't live there. The ultimate frustration for me, would have to be that the Karubecue C-60's available, yet I still wouldn't be allowed to dabble in the delights of smoking foods.

[MoonshineBen]

Glad you found it useful @Andy_Mann. One thing I have found since starting BBQ is that the community, and particularly here in Australia, is just one big happy family of people just wanting to cook amazing food and teach and learn from each other.

You're right on the equipment. When I finally have some space, I'll be getting myself a Radar Hill smoker - that's the goal!

[Jason]

Good stuff @MoonshineBen. We want to promote the same culture of sharing knowledge and experiences here in the Workshop community. It's great to have you on board posting your tips and advice. Thanks again for joining us and sharing.

Jason

[Jason]

I hear you'll be makin' bacon on the weekend @MoonshineBen. Looking forward to seeing some photos. 

Jason

[ProjectPete]

@MoonshineBen #GrillGoals

Credit: Radar Hill Smokers

As long as more Prague Powder arrives this week, I'll be whipping up some bacon too. Ribs for dinner on Sun.

[Jason]

Hands up if you know that it’s international bacon day today!

Jason

[Walter]

@Jason,

Thanks for the heads-up.  I have some hickory smoked bacon in the fridge, and you've given me a great excuse to make a late snack.  There's nothing quite like a bacon and chedder cheese sandwich