Bacon made from pork belly typically starts with a dry cure. var type = document.querySelector('input[name="calctype"]:checked').value; var mlpergallon = 3785.41; It’s now ready to slice into … This pressing down on the cured meat, I presume just speeds up the process a little bit. For me personally, my bacon is generally dry salt cured at 2.25% total salt (which includes the 0.25% pink curing salt). Long cures with Brine curing like Pops does is OK, because it's an equalizing Brine Cure, diluted with a lot of water, but Dry curing is using a stronger dose of cure & salt, with no added water, designed for a shorter cure. You can use non-metallic weights to achieve this - we use old, heavy crockery. This is probably one of the most crucial steps when your equilibrium curing (for brining it’s easy). So here is my methods are broken down, first equilibrium curing bacon then brining. You can use the meat to wipe the surface of the bowl with the meat at the end, to really get all the cure onto the meat, before placing it in the bag. For a fattier bacon, ask for meat that came from the hog's belly and/or chest. if (unit === "lb") weight = weight / poundsPerKg; Turned out great!". As a guide, I use the 40% water to the total weight of the meat. The big problem is that salt penetrates at a different pace, depending on the brand and the shape of the salt. Even though a normal kitchen fridge is running at 20 to 30% humidity, the pork belly that I am drying out is normally less than 1 inch thick it seems to dry out nicely in the kitchen fridge in between some light cold smoking sessions. Mix everything together and then rub your cure onto the outside of the bacon. You can scale this recipe up and down by adding 100g of salt and 30g of sugar for every litre of water. To get a little bit of a uniform shape, and forced the cure into the meat a bit more. What I like to do is place the spice grinder onto the scales, and then I can zero TARE the ingredients as I add them in. } Because the measurements are sometimes like 0.5g for certain types of herbs and spices you might want to use. Bacon slabs cured without nitrites will last 3 weeks in the refrigerator and 6 months in the freezer. This squeezes as much of the air out of the bag as possible. All the best, Tom. Ive not tryed my DIY chamber yet im just fine tuning the temperature and humidity at the moment. Then you just have to ziploc close the last bit up. After bacon is done … Pat the bacon dry with a clean towel and set … 1 and cure No. Cured Pork Loin - Curing Your Own Bacon - Preserve & Pickle These are not an expensive item but make a big difference in your curing mix. wikiHow is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together. Then pour four quarts of cold water into the bucket. 1 pink salt is used to cure all meats that require cooking, brining, smoking, or canning. It’s then wrapped up and set in a refrigerator for 6-7 days to cure. Awesome glad to hear you’ve got a setup! This makes it much easier for the cure to dilute in the water if you have finally ground cure mix. I utilize the space underneath the fruit and vegetable containers in my fridge. It is 93.75 … Refrigerate meat while you prepare the cure. Stir to dissolve. After combing the two and give it a quick blitz in the grinder. Cover and refrigerate in a cool part of the refrigerator with a constant temperature (34º F to 36º F) for 4 days. Loins, bacon, spareribs. It really does depend on your perception of saltiness I know a lot of people that love to go a lot higher and a bit less. Once you've covered the bacon, put it in a sealable plastic container and set it in the fridge for 5 days to cure. For every 1 gallon of water, add: 1/3 – 1 cup sea salt (depending if you’re on a lo-salt diet) 1 cup granulated sugar or Splenda® 1 cup brown sugar or Splenda® brown sugar mix; 1 tbsp cure no. So the techniques that I have heard about is using sous vide bags made of silicon, which are reusable and washable. With a wet cure, the belly is instead placed in a water-based cure solution and refrigerated for 10-14 days. I’ve tried dry curing and wet brining with a whole different array of smoking woods and techniques – so to settle in on one’s technique now really is a blessing. window.onload = function() { Add the cold brine to the pork, and lay a heavy plate on top of the floating meat to keep it submerged. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. The drying intensifies the flavor! 4 lbs. You need some scales that will measure in 0.1g increments. We know ads can be annoying, but they’re what allow us to make all of wikiHow available for free. I like to kind of roll the meat up in the ziploc bag, with the seal slightly open on one end. Notes. Irish and Canadian bacon are made from lean pork loin and utilize a brine to cure the pork. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. Once you’ve stirred and mixed it into the brine container. Sometimes when you’re doing the home curing you may be using only 0.5-1.0 pounds of pork belly for the bacon. Then you end up leaving a small amount of dry curing converted into a kind of salt brine in your bowl. If you are chilling multiple bellies, set each one in its own container rather than stacking the meat directly on top of each other. Pink curing salt Meat Weight [1] X Research source Specify that you want a raw pork belly that hasn't already been cured or sliced. Quite often I use no sugar, but if I do have a sweet tooth going on ( or am making bacon for others who like a bit of sweetness) then up to 1% sugar. Dry Cure for Bacon. To cure bacon, start by making a curing agent with kosher salt and sodium nitrite. } Curing your own bacon, at least once, is a great experience for any meat enthusiast. Duration of curing return Math.round(x * Math.pow(10,digits)) / Math.pow(10,digits); You basically get to a level where it’s killing most of the bad bacteria, and when you’re adding the pink curing salt I believe this is taking care of the rest. Thanks for dropping by, I’ve been passionate about meat curing for around 20 years now. if (type === "brining") { 8 lbs. Once home, place the pork belly in a sealable container to keep your fridge clean and prevent cross-contamination with other items. const poundsPerKg = 2.2046226218; If you are using pink curing salt, make sure you understand that this stuff at the right levels is toxic. Next, create your cure by adding seasonings like salt, pepper, thyme, and sugar to your curing agent. I never go over about 1% sugar, but I realize some people like to make bacon candy or a sweeter type of bacon. of salt/5 gallons of water = 61 degrees brine. Equilibrium Wet Brining Place the pork belly in gallon ziplock bag or container that just fits the size of the pork belly and pour the brine over it. lb } I have a few recommendations of decent digital scales, check them out here (near the bottom of the page). If you wish to do this, be sure to tell your butcher to save the skin if you have them slice the skin off for you. Add all the cure ingredients together in a large bowl and stir. This is pretty much a must, and since the price of technology is come down so much. So I created this calculator and tool for easily doing the equilibrium curing and brining, you can find a link here to the calculator. Meat Curing Calculator Tool Need some kind of air sealed bag, ‘ziploc’ work very well for this. Dry Cured Bacon. Step 7: Remove belly from brine and dry off. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Equilibrium Dry Curing Considering that this just really basically is a little bit of a calculation to work out the ratios. 1 pink salt There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/b\/b8\/Cure-Bacon-Step-1-Version-2.jpg\/v4-460px-Cure-Bacon-Step-1-Version-2.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/b\/b8\/Cure-Bacon-Step-1-Version-2.jpg\/aid1406943-v4-728px-Cure-Bacon-Step-1-Version-2.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":345,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"546","licensing":"