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.

I’ve scaled back on the spice, this time, as many of tomorrow’s guests aren’t nuts about spicy food.

Update: Just sauteed one of each type of sausage over medium-high heat, and they’re great! I think it was the griller that was drying them out.

As an aside, I used MUCH less cumin this time, and the result is a much more complex and subtle flavour.

Currently on the menu:

• Mild italian pork sausage
• Mexican-style chorizo
• Ginger-szechuan brined chicken
• Smoked chicken breasts with maple-pomegranate glaze
• Satan ribs (if I can be arsed)

I’ll be uploading the photos tomorrow – there were a LOT of sausages. And the smell was awesome (garlic, red wine, and gin).

Stay tuned…

Once cured (around 12 hours, since the tenderloins are quite thin), I dried them out in the fridge for 2 hours, and then smoked them. Since I hot-smoked the tenderloins, they’re basically cooked (much the same as bacon).

I added sodium nitrate to the brine (mainly, in this case, so I can watch cure penetration, due to the way sodium nitrate binds myoglobin).
Note the faint ring on the cross-section; this indicates how far the cure had penetrated in 12 hours.
Based on this, I’ll be curing the next lot for around 36 hours (4 days, if it’s an entire loin).

So, how does it taste? It’s a slightly cider-like taste, balanced beautifully by the rosemary and chilli. The ground mustard seems to have disappeared in there, but I’m ok with that.

All in all, a qualified success.

The flavour is definitely…intriguing. But the following flaws prevent this batch of sausages from being all they could be:

• A little too much cumin (I suspect this may mellow a bit with age but, still, it kind of overwhelms the other flavours).
• Not enough tequila (I’d say 30% more) for the flavour to really come through (although it may simply be swamped by the cumin).
• I’m not happy with the ratio of Ancho to Chipotle to Paprika. I think I’d prefer less paprika, and more Ancho (and a little more Chipotle, too). Next time, I’ll try deriving the heat less from paprika and more from some fresh chilli.

Pictures to follow.

While the test-patty is a good indicator of rough flavour, be aware that the flavour will definitely  mature in the day or two after the sausages were made.

Stay tuned…