another damn bacon thread

[still_cookin]

Regular shop bacon makes my throat burn and sometimes give me a headache. same with salami which i'm also really sad about

Sooo homemade bacon without nitrates!
~2kg of pork belly
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
some pepper, juniper berries, coriander and garlic
all ground in mortar and pestle (i have rock salt so need to grind it down smaller for brining etc)

Brined for 5 days without draining the liquid.
Rinsed and dried overnite uncovered in the fridge.
Smoked with beech chips in the kamado for about 3 hours until 65C internal.
Sliced at 4.5mm then frozen!

Came out a little too salty when i test fried after the smoking - but defrosting in some cool water fixes that up
had some with dinner, then breakfast the next day and some more with dinner again - no burning and no migraines and tastes bloody fantastic

Left the skin on all the way thru. After defrosting i cut it off and cook it up for a few minutes first before the bacon/eggs etc go on. Crunchy!

Thanks to all the bacon threads and posters here i read thru to amalgamate all the info on how i wanted to go about it

[Gumb]

Good post and thanks for taking the time. I usually cold smoke and then cryo-vac but i have a bit of shoulder on the cure at the moment and I think after reading this I might hot smoke it as you did. I had the same problem with a bit too much of a salty taste with my last batch, and the missus isn't a fan of that, but after a good soak it came out better the next time.

[still_cookin]

At least too salty is easy to fix.
Not salty enough is definitely the wrong way to go

[beachbums]

Nice Job on the bacon Stillcooking. Jan and I have had a couple of goes at the no nitrate bacon but haven't done any for a while. Your post could get me going again.
One query with your recipe up top, is that the correct amount of salt/sugar mix? 3 Tbsp doesn't seem enough compared to other methods we've used.

Cheers, Wayne and Jan

[still_cookin]

hmmm - maybe i did do 3 tablespoons of salt now that i think back - and would be 3 tbps after grinding the rock salt in the mortar.
don't know a bout a ratio of salt/sugar but i always use a lot less sugar in all recipes i do.
There's too much sugar hidden in everyday foods that's already hard enough to evoid