Makin' Bacon

Buying the Pork

Back in June I ordered two pork bellies from Arnold's Farm in Elizabeth, Illinois.  Tom raises humane, antibiotic-free hogs along with both grain- and grass-fed beef and pastured sheep, chicken, and turkeys.  He's at the Freight House Farmer's Market every Saturday, so I took delivery there.  He needed two weeks lead time to get the hogs dressed.  His processor is AJ's Lena Maid Meats in Lena, Illinois.

Tom charged me $5.00 a pound for the bellies, not a bad price for a premium-quality product.  At the same time I also ordered some back fat, which came to 12 pounds at $2.00 per pound.  The invoice total was $110.73.  I'm pretty happy with the quality of the pork Tom is selling me, and I'm already planning some future purchases.  If you're down at the farmer's market on Saturday look him up, I'm sure you won't be disappointed!

Certifying the Pork

Do you know what "certifying pork" means?  It means freezing pork at a low enough temperature to destroy the trichinella spiralis parasite in accordance with 9 CFR 318.10(c)(2).  In general, this can be accomplished by popping the meat into the freezer for a week.  While this isn't technically necessary for pork that will be cured and then hot-smoked, it isn't difficult and adds some additional assurance that the meat is safe.  My freezer runs at -7 degrees Fahrenheit, so by keeping the bellies in the freezer for a week I've effectively killed any trichinella that may have been present.

Once the pork was certified, I transferred one of the bellies from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw.  This only took a day, and then the meat was ready for curing.

Curing the Pork

The basic dry cure is taken from the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.  Here's the recipe:

The Basic Dry Cure With Granulated Sugar
450 grams kosher salt
225 grams sugar
50 grams pink salt (Insta Cure #1, DQ Curing Salt, TCM, etc)

My pork belly weighed 9 pounds.  I cut it into thirds, yielding three slabs just the right size to fit into 1-gallon ziploc bags.  I mixed up the dry cure and dredged the first slab, then placed it in a ziploc bag.  Next I labeled the bag with the contents and the date.

For the second three-pound slab, I made a savory dry rub that I applied prior to the dry cure.  Here's the recipe:

Savory Dry Cure
1t garlic powder
4 bay leaves
1t ground coriander
1t fennel seed
1T coarse fresh-ground black pepper
2t dried thyme
Mix all ingredients in a small food processor or grind with a mortar and pestle.  Apply rub to meat, then apply the Basic Dry Cure (recipe above).

For the third slab, I made a sweet, breakfast-style rub.  Here's the recipe:

Sweet Bacon Cure
1/2 cup brown sugar
2T apple juice
Mix ingredients.  Rub (or brush, if thin) onto belly, then apply the Basic Dry Cure (recipe above).

Once all three slabs were bagged up, I placed them in a glass baking dish in the refrigerator.  They'll stay in there for seven to nine days, getting turned once or twice a day to ensure complete coverage of the rub/brine.  I'll update this post again when they are ready to come out of the cure and go into the smoker.


Smoking the Pork

Newsflash!  It is now a week later and I am ready to take these belly portions out of the cure and smoke them.  I've taken them out of the Ziplocs, rinsed them thoroughly in cold water, and placed them on a cookie sheet.  At this point, I would normally put them back in the refrigerator for a day to dry out and form a nice pellicle. However, I cannot wait another day on this bacon, so instead I've placed the cookie sheet on a table top and pointed a fan at it.  With a fan blowing on the meat it dries out quickly.  In about three hours the pork had a tacky and dry outer surface that would accept smoke easily.  Time to fire up the smoker!

That's my smoker.  It is a Kenmore vertical propane water smoker with four racks.  I've had it for a few years and it's been pretty trustworthy.  Unfortunately, this year I've started having some problems getting it to maintain a temperature higher than 200 degrees.  I think it needs a new regulator, and I plan to replace that soon - they're only about ten bucks from Menards or Walmart.  The good news is that bacon doesn't require a high smoking temperature.  Because it's already cured, it is fairly well-protected from dangerous microbes and only needs to be smoked to an internal temperature of 150 degrees.  This temperature can be easily achieved with a smoker running at 180 to 200 degrees in roughly two to three hours.  

You may be wondering about the green watering can in the photo above.  It is full of apple juice that I use to replenish the water tray in the smoker as it boils off.  Using apple juice instead of water adds a sweet, fruity aroma to the smoke while still keeping the air in the smoker humid so the meat doesn't dry out.

From top to bottom, we have the basic cure, then the sweet cure, then the savory cure.  I have two thermometers inside the smoker.  One is giving the temperature of the smoker and the other is giving the temperature of the hottest cut of meat (the one closest to the fire).  I don't trust the gauge in the door of the smoker, so that's why I add the gauge inside.  As long as that gauge doesn't go over 200 degrees, then I know my meat is not getting roasted.  Later on in the smoke (at about the two hour mark) I swapped the top and bottom racks so that the coolest and hottest racks changed places.  Also, I should point out that it's best to keep the meat side down during the entire smoke.  That way, any fat that renders out of the rind will soak into the meat instead of just dripping uselessly into the bottom of the smoker.

Here is a (slightly blurry) photo of the first slab I pulled off of the smoker.  It's the basic dry cure:

I cut off a slice of the end to have a taste.  It was a bit too salty, but that is ok because I can blanch it in boiling water for a minute or two before frying it.  This blanch will not only temper the saltiness, but will also make it crisp up more in the frying pan.

The sweet cured slab came off next:

I took a slice of that as well.  It's not sweet enough for my taste, but it does have a mild sweetness and is not as salty as the basic cure.\

Finally, I took the savory cured slab out (in the front, above).  This was my favorite.  It has a deep, complex flavor.  It's not sweet, nor overly salty, but it is highly seasoned.  No single spice is forward; instead there is a tapestry of different flavors that are well balanced. This was Jean's favorite, and she raved that it is the best bacon she's ever tasted.  I agree, but I always think I can do better, and so I am going to try to improve this next time. Right now I think the only thing I will change with this recipe is to add some juniper berries.


You may be curious about the long knife in the photo above.  That's actually a handcrafted Japanese sushi knife, and I'll be doing an article about it in the future.  For now, all I can say is that it is my favorite knife, I've had it for seven years and it's ridiculously sharp.  


While this bacon was still hot from the smoker, Jean and I decided to fry some up and make BLTs.  Homemade bacon is completely unlike store-bought bacon.  For one thing, it doesn't crinkle up like those thin strips of Oscar Mayer because it isn't injected with saline solution.  For another, it can be cut thicker.  Finally, the flavors are much more intense.  Jean and I both agreed that the BLTs we had tonight were the best we ever tasted.

The remainder of the slabs are going into fresh Ziplocs and will be placed in the refrigerator overnight.  Tomorrow I will run them through the deli slicer and then they will be moved to the freezer for long-term storage.