Making bacon / curing meat.

[Jer_1974]

Anyone else cure meat?
Bought some bacon from a new butchers last week and I was disappointed with how much water and white crap that came out so decided to try and make my own. I didn't want to spend a fortune on rare breed organic pork in case I mess up so made a trip to Tesco and bought 2kg of belly pork for £12 and a big bag of salt. I ordered a 100g bag of sodium nitrate from ebay for £3 which stops it going gray and hopefully stops the small risk of botulism.


Salt, brown sugar and sodium nitrate (sorry for the crap photo)


All mixed up 500g salt 300g sugar and 2g sodium nitrate


Belly pork


All mixed up and rubbed into all the crevices.


Cleared out my Beer fridge and tilted to let it drain


After 3 hours


After a day it's starting to look like Bacon. I drained about half a pint of fluid out of the box.



It cures for 5 days turning every day then it gets washed dried and hung in a cool place for three days to neutralise. More photos to follow next week and hopefully some bacon rolls next weekend.

[Jer_1974]

Mr MXT said:

Following with interest....but sodium NITRATE or sodium NITRITE?

It's sodium NITRATE but I think you can use both.

sas62 said:

Also watching with interest.

This is slightly different to how I do mine (I have a 2kg pork loin curing at the moment)

The curing mix I use is salt & brown sugar (50/50 mix), some cloves, some bruised juniper berries. No nitrites.

I then use a tenth of the cure each day rather than all up front. So each day drain, clean and dry the container and apply another tenth of the cure mix. After 10 days clean the meat with vinegar and water and then hang for another week or two. Sound a bit of a faff but it only takes 5 minutes or less each day.

Didn't think it would get so wet so quickly. I am in two minds to mix more and wash all the wet stuff off and follow what you do. If so should I include more nitrate? Any photo's of yours does it go grey.

[Jer_1974]

sas62 said:

Here is the sliced output from my last curing. Back bacon, streaky bacon and lardons. The current one will just be back bacon.

Looks great and still pink without nitrates.

[Jer_1974]

Rinsed, dried and hung mine tonight. I make beer so have a fermentation fridge I can hang it in. I have set the fridge to 8.5 degrees but not sure what temp I should set it at, any advice?

Didn't have a meat hook so used a skewer and two cable ties.


Fridge and car shot

[Jer_1974]

Problem is not spending a fortune on a Bacon hobby. Bit of belly pork some herbs, sugar and spices. God knows how I am going to cut mine without spending £150 + on a bacon slicer. It's getting more expensive than brewing my beer hobby.

[Jer_1974]

Bacon rolls for breakfast.

[Jer_1974]

ambuletz said:

That looks really really good. Was it worthit in the end? how does it taste to regular shop bought bacon? what are your thoughts on the whole thing.

It tastes really nice, not too salty with a hint of sweetness and was very easy and cheap to do. The whole process took a week from start to finish. Next time I will take the skin off before curing as it went rock hard and would like to smoke it and add some extra ingredients to the cure.

[Jer_1974]

Jambo85 said:

I will still look pink when raw with or without nitrates/nitrites, it is when you cook it that you notice the difference.

Get some photos up.

Jambo85 said:

I will still look pink when raw with or without nitrates/nitrites, it is when you cook it that you notice the difference.

Mine also did not look as pink as shop bought bacon. I have also asked Santa for a cold smoker for Christmas: https://www.macsbbq.com/cold-smokers