Mmmmm… Bacon
- Salt, sugar, chili, shallot, garlic, thyme, peppercorns
- Add half the water you will need, bring to boil and simmer till salt and sugar have fully dissolved
- Add ice to thin out the strong brine and will also cool it down fully
- Skin on Pork Belly
- Add belly to a non reactive container
- Cover with ice brine, refrigerate for 8 days
- After the 8 day brine
- Remove from brine and lightly rinse
- Discard the brine
- Perforated pan with a rack
- Smoking chips in a foil trey
- Lay the bacon on the rack while you start your smoking chips
- Place the pan with the chips on a burner turn on high or start with a blow torch
- Turn down the burner once the chips have started to smolder
- Once the chips are burning but not on fire add the belly and keep the burner on low
- Cover with a pan and let it smoke for 20 minutes on low
- Keep smoking for 20 or 30 minutes more
- Perfect
- Remove smoked belly and transfer to a rack on a sheet trey
- Cook at 285 f for 30-40 minutes or till cooked through
- Nice
- Hang belly in fridge for 24 hours to let all flavors melt together and settle
- Bacon slab cut in half
- Remove skin and save
- Remove all fat, skin, scraps and then slice while very cold
- Skin and scraps are great for pork and chili braised tomato sauce
- Save fat for all the great things in life.
February 9, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I really appreciate these step by step accounts of your processes. It looks fantastic!
I have cured and smoked my own bacon several times at home. The biggest problem is that I am unable to slice it evenly. As a result, it doesn’t cook up very evenly and is difficult to crisp uniformly. Do you have any suggestions on how to slice bacon without a deli slicer?
February 10, 2009 at 8:58 am
Make sure your bacon is cooked threw, really cold and you have a meat carving knife that is longer then the slice you plan on cutting. While you are slicing your bacon try to slice with one movement instead of a sawing motion. I have a home deli slicer that I bought online for around a 100$ and it works just fine. Good luck, thanks for the support and the good question.
February 23, 2009 at 6:46 am
wow. fantastic. a for effort. i’m having a five course iron chef-style bacon smackdown next week and i only wish i had enough time to do this whole process. looks awesome!
April 9, 2009 at 12:03 am
Y’all,
For $100 the ‘Chef’s Choice’ slicer works great… sure wish I had a Hobart, but thats some big bux.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002AKCOC
BTW, great stuff Ryan…
J.
May 31, 2009 at 2:46 am
[…] the students and I have completely made hot dogs, consomme, rolled face, rendered lard and bacon. We currently are curing curried copa. In the future the step by step process with the finished […]