This week’s bacon is cured with garlic, pepper, bay leaves, and juniper berries.
It should be ready to smoke by next Wednesday.

[27/09/11] Update:

Had to smoke 2 days early because some nasty weather is coming. It’s pretty firm, but may be slightly under-cured.

Its aroma has a hard-to-place sweetness about it from the bay leaves, but this is nicely tempered by the crushed juniper berries.

As usual, we start up the smoker nice and early.

Pictures of cooked bacon coming. It will need a day in the fridge for the taste to stabilise, but it’s pretty good. Lightly flavoured due to short curing time, but still nice.

[14/09/11] Update: The smoking…

It’s good to see that the smoker still works (although it’s a little rusty), but I’m looking forward to buying an electric smoker next year so I can start cold-smoking.

Today’s smoke will be Hickory:

Aaaaaand… we’re off!

1 degree to go! Note that the thermometer says beef because it won’t let you cook pork at bacon-smoking temperatures (the bastard):

And here’s the (almost) finished product – a cured, smoked, pork belly (whole pork loin, without the bones, is a better cut, but harder to come by):

It’s best to let it cool overnight in the fridge before slicing, but I’m so excited I can’t wait:

It’s important to note that the bacon (especially the end pieces) will taste quite salty at first, but it will mellow if you keep it, uncovered, in the fridge for a day or 2.
Finally, we fry it up:

Delicious!

[20/09/11] Update: Michele and I have been eating bacon pretty much every day since I made this (we just ran out, today), and I have to say that it’s improved heaps with age.

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This bacon came out quite well; it was cured for 8 days, and then smoked for several hours to 65C. Texture was good, as was fat-to-meat ratio. The extra curing time meant that there was less water in the bacon, which is good from a fry-up perspective.

Tip: vacuum-packing the bacon when curing ensures that the entire surface of the bacon cut is continuously in contact with the cure. It also helps to draw some initial liquid out of the meat to mix with the cure (and, thereby, kick-start the curing process). It also helps produce a drier bacon (which is more pleasant to fry).

I could have quite happily sold this bacon (if we were at the commercial stage yet).

Unfortunately, I lost the pictures of the finished product. But, trust me, it was delicious.

As it was, the flavour is a little too subtle for my liking; next time, we’ll be going for the full cure-and-dry before smoking.

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