Home Made Bacon

[WildmanWilson]

As for smoking, cold smoke is the way to go. A typical slab of pork belly I find easy to work with is no more than 5lbs, trimmed nice and square to make slicing easier. One work around to the long time is to cold smoke a slab that is room temp, dry and tacky on suface for 4-5 hours. Seal in a 2 gallon size ziploc bag with no air and bring it to 152-155 degrees in a water bath. You can set , walk away for 12 hours and it will never get over the 152 degree mark. Works great. I do mine overnight the chill down the next morning to set the fat and make it slice able.

What’s the reason for bringing it to 152? The only way we ever made bacon was the old school way in a smokehouse. Layer it down with the sugar cure then washed it off after a period of time and hung it and smoked it along with everything else. I don’t know what the temperature got to in the smokehouse but I’m guessing it was pretty low.

 

[bluegrassDan]

Usually any sausage or cured meat recipe that uses raw pork, and will be cold smoked, will require that you get the meat to around 152° F to ensure it is safe and not still raw in the middle. Part of what this does is decrease water activity inside the meat and helps prevent spoilage organisms from being able to multiply. The salt and curing salt do this but getting it to the right temp is insurance you won't get anyone sick.

Now, this is also assuming that you are not doing a full-blown salt cure that reduces the moisture content to the level that micro beasties can't survive, in which case you are basically making country ham. This was to improve the product by reducing or eliminating the soaking process to leech out the excess salt and make the meat more "eatable". I do it that way because I hate to wait for a month while my bacon cures and becomes so salty, I can't eat it without soaking it. I do an equilibrium cure where, pretty much no matter how long it sits, it should not get any saltier (within reason, you can't let it go for a year) and it reduces curing and processing time to about 10 days.

 

[bigbonner]

LOL...I have tried to do Venison, but around here they are too lean as far as fat to meat ratio in the belly/brisket area to make decent bacon style cured meat. I have done an entire ham this way and it turned out great. The draw back was the time it took. curing a 7lb ham was like 18 days in a wet brine, a day to hang and dry and another 12 hours in the smoke, followed by the water bath cooking to final temp (24 hours). It was too warm out that weekend to leave it in the cold smoke much longer and even then, I was pretty nervous about it.

Long process but it looks good. Venison Bacon.

 

[bluegrassDan]

See, I tried it and it does taste good, but its like eating fried summer sausage. If you don't mind the texture and the work its pretty good, I'm not a fan of the spice mix.

 

[Lady Hunter]

See, I tried it and it does taste good, but its like eating fried summer sausage. If you don't mind the texture and the work its pretty good, I'm not a fan of the spice mix.

I tried it a few years ago & wasn't a fan. Don't remember where we bought the mix but it had NO "baconey" flavor AT ALL. Heck, it didn't have ANY flavor at all - other than just plain ground up venison.

It was pretty bad....

 

[Drahts]

I didn't read all the thread. But I use a salt, curing salt and brown sugar for my brine. Sometimes I use honey and sometimes black pepper too. But I mixi it up good and put on a big cutting board. Take my pork belly and make sure I get both sides and each end covered then put it in a 2 1/2 gallon ziplock. put it in fridge and turn it every day for 7. Then stand em in a square bucket and cover with cold water, then trickle a stream for an hour. Take out, pat dry and put on racks in the fridge for 24 hrs. Then I put in smoker and cold smoke for 6 hrs. Remove and par freeze and slice on meat slicer. I do thick slices. Best bacon ever is home made.

 

[bigpuddin43]

I didn't read all the thread. But I use a salt, curing salt and brown sugar for my brine. Sometimes I use honey and sometimes black pepper too. But I mixi it up good and put on a big cutting board. Take my pork belly and make sure I get both sides and each end covered then put it in a 2 1/2 gallon ziplock. put it in fridge and turn it every day for 7. Then stand em in a square bucket and cover with cold water, then trickle a stream for an hour. Take out, pat dry and put on racks in the fridge for 24 hrs. Then I put in smoker and cold smoke for 6 hrs. Remove and par freeze and slice on meat slicer. I do thick slices. Best bacon ever is home made.

this is how I used to to mine. then the price of pork bellys went thru the roof. when it cost my $60 for a pork belly I quit but had a hog butchered this fall and have belly in the freezer so I need to get them out and do some again.