Recently one of my friends had a crack at some home cured bacon and I was so impressed with the way it came out and how simple it is to do, I wondered why I'd never done this before. The curing process is quite simple: you take a slab of meat, rub it with salt and sugar and leave it to cure. You repeat this a few times over the course of a few days and then it's done.
I started with a nice chunk of free range belly of pork from the supermarket. This piece is about 600g and cost just over £3:
The rub is quite a simple mix, two parts salt to one part dark brown sugar and for extra flavour I've added ground peppercorns and a little coriander seed. You can also use juniper berries, honey or whatever takes your fancy. Here is about 6 tablespoons of salt, 3 tablespoons of sugar and teaspoon each of peppercorns and coriander seed ground together:
In a non metallic container (I've used a roasting dish) rub the meat generously on the skin side:
Flip it over and repeat on the bottom and sides:
Leave it skin side down, cover and put it in the fridge:
Curing time is largely determined by the thickness of the meat. 25-30mm thick will need about 36 hours and 40-50mm thick will need 48 hours. Go on the average thickness of the piece of meat, not the thickest part.
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Day 2 is here! As you can see there's a lot of liquid come out the meat and that gets tipped away:
Take the meat out and rinse the outside of the meat under the cold tap and pat dry. You'll see it's firmed up quite a lot and it's a darker colour, less pink than it was:
Now you should wrap it up in greaseproof paper and leave it for 3-5 days to mature, then it's ready to cook!
Edit 1: when I first started this thread I did multiple rubs over the space of a week. We all found it made the bacon a bit too salty. After a bit of experimentation, I found the optimum cure was no more than 48 hours for a piece of pork belly. I've not edited the rest of the thread, so you can read it 'how it was', but bear in mind the bacon will be a bit salty if you make it that way.
Edit 2: back bacon here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=18247862&postcount=170
Edit 3: add saltpetre to the cure: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=18247862&postcount=192
I started with a nice chunk of free range belly of pork from the supermarket. This piece is about 600g and cost just over £3:
The rub is quite a simple mix, two parts salt to one part dark brown sugar and for extra flavour I've added ground peppercorns and a little coriander seed. You can also use juniper berries, honey or whatever takes your fancy. Here is about 6 tablespoons of salt, 3 tablespoons of sugar and teaspoon each of peppercorns and coriander seed ground together:
In a non metallic container (I've used a roasting dish) rub the meat generously on the skin side:
Flip it over and repeat on the bottom and sides:
Leave it skin side down, cover and put it in the fridge:
Curing time is largely determined by the thickness of the meat. 25-30mm thick will need about 36 hours and 40-50mm thick will need 48 hours. Go on the average thickness of the piece of meat, not the thickest part.
----
Day 2 is here! As you can see there's a lot of liquid come out the meat and that gets tipped away:
Take the meat out and rinse the outside of the meat under the cold tap and pat dry. You'll see it's firmed up quite a lot and it's a darker colour, less pink than it was:
Now you should wrap it up in greaseproof paper and leave it for 3-5 days to mature, then it's ready to cook!
Edit 1: when I first started this thread I did multiple rubs over the space of a week. We all found it made the bacon a bit too salty. After a bit of experimentation, I found the optimum cure was no more than 48 hours for a piece of pork belly. I've not edited the rest of the thread, so you can read it 'how it was', but bear in mind the bacon will be a bit salty if you make it that way.
Edit 2: back bacon here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=18247862&postcount=170
Edit 3: add saltpetre to the cure: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=18247862&postcount=192
Last edited:
