Cooking with Jonny69: Home cured bacon

Oh for goodness sake, why did I have to look at this thread whilst I was in the library? All I have are ham sandwiches that have been in my bag for 9 hours. Hmph.
It looks amazing Jonny!
 
Holy thread revival etc.

I have created bacon :)

5" length of pork loin. 3 rubs left for 24 hours each (first 2 with a mix of 3 tbsp sea salt, 1 tbsp soft brown sugar, 1 tsp pepper; final rub without the pepper). Just washed the final rub off and I'm leaving it overnight ready for bacon sandwiches tomorrow for breakfast. Tiger loaf is in the fridge ready and waiting

I'll let you know how I get on :)
 
Another thread revival, I'm spotting a trend :D

I've added explosives to the rub for the first time so I'll see if it comes out differently. It's not much saltpetre: just 2g for every 100g of salt. Something I didn't think about though - I've got it ground up with the salt and there's sugar int he jar as well. Lets hope there's not a bang in the night :D

JHeaton: best cut to start with is belly, which you can get in Waitrose and Tesco, but not always Sainsbury's. You can use loin but it's a bit more expensive if you haven't cured anything before :)
 
I've tried curing things with and without saltpetre and to be honest haven't noticed much difference either way. It may have helped save me from botulism, but it terms of flavour and colour it's been about the same as leaving it out.
 
Interesting. I can't say I've had botulism from anything :D but I have my doubts that the meat we get over here will suffer from it anyway. It is an added faff with the weighing though. If I find it doesn't do anything, chances are I won't use it again and it'll end up being used to blow something up in the garden :D
 
Interesting. I can't say I've had botulism from anything :D but I have my doubts that the meat we get over here will suffer from it anyway. It is an added faff with the weighing though. If I find it doesn't do anything, chances are I won't use it again and it'll end up being used to blow something up in the garden :D

I'd be interested to hear your results with it.
It could just be that I have a duff batch or something!

I've used pure Saltpetre so far in my curing mixture, which is potassium nitrate.
Tempted to try some ready prepared curing salt, which has a mixture of nitrate and nitrite in it to see if that gives a better result.
 
Just to be sure, you guys are calculating the correct amount of salt petre for your cures and meat weights aren't you. I just haven't seen anyone mention any calcs so far and it is important to get it right.
I use cure No 2 which itself is only a small proportion nitrate and then it becomes only small proportion in my total cure.
 
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Jonny, any more revisions from your baconating experiences? Looking forward to trying this out but thought you might have some more meaty wisdom to share with us :D
Not really, still using 2 parts salt to one part dark sugar. Cure it for a day and a half usually, two days if it's a thick bit :p

Oh, and make sure you fry it ;)
Just to be sure, you guys are calculating the correct amount of salt petre for your cures and meat weights aren't you. I just haven't seen anyone mention any calcs so far and it is important to get it right.
I use cure No 2 which itself is only a small proportion nitrate and then it becomes only small proportion in my total cure.
Yep, 2% nitrate in the salt here. I think you only have to calculate with the weight of meat if you're leaving the nitrate in the meat mix, for example if you're making sausages.
 
I'm doing an experiment with this, got a big chunk of belly pork of the butcher. Had to slice the bottom layer off as it was all ribs. (Marinading that tonight for dinner).

Hilariously a nipple popped out as soon as I applied the first salt/sugar rub. It's been 24 hours or so so far and it's already starting to look like a cured meat, drained it twice, just applied a fresh rub.

Using 50% salt 50% soft brown sugar for this.
 
Im giving this a go as we speak....

Just bought a couple of cheap belly pork cuts from the supermarket and the jobs a good'un

For the cure i have gone with 2 tablespoons of salt to 1 tablespoon of dark muscovado sugar, with some ground black peppercorns.

The Mrs has already said she wont eat it because bacon should be bought, not made :confused::mad:

Will report back with some pics of the finished product in 48 hours.
 
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