Bacon.
Few words get as much of a reaction as bacon. It’s a universal language that we all speak.
And it’ll cure what ails you.
Having a rough day?
Forget the wine. Here, have some bacon.
Don’t know what to make for supper?
Who needs supper? Let’s just have bacon.
Pondering what makes the world go ’round?
Yeah, you guessed it…bacon.
Thanks to the Chinese who began salting pork bellies back in the 16th century, we have a most scrumptious culinary gem that makes mouths water and eager groans commence upon the slightest whiff of its immediately recognizable aroma.
But how, exactly, did bacon make its beginnings in a time prior to refrigeration? Well, back in those days, entire animals were preserved- and enjoyed- without the need of a stable 32-degree environment.
Bacon as we know it today is a flavored sibling of the far more savory and valuable preserved specimen of which we will be discussing in this article.
Yes, I am telling you that there’s such thing as a better bacon.
Let’s learn how to get it into your kitchen and onto your plate.
(This post contains affiliate links.)
What You Will Need:
- the very best quality pork belly you can source, with the skin on
- 4 cups coarse kosher salt
- 4 cups cane sugar
- tub made of plastic or glass, large enough to fit your pork belly
Directions:
Dry curing your pork belly is the process of removing the liquid from the flesh so that bacteria does not have a place to grow. If bacteria cannot grow, you have a shelf-stable, room temperature-stable product. I understand that our spoiled, refrigeration- dependent minds immediately hesitate at the idea of meat hanging from our ceilings. It seems weird. Cool…but weird. I get it. And yet people have been doing it this way much longer than we’ve been doing it our way.
But what about botulism? Don’t we need nitrites/nitrates?
Botulism is caused by a neurotoxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. This bacterium needs an oxygen-deprived environment in order to produce. Salt cured meat suspended from the rafters as opposed to being stuffed in a jar means botulism is an entirely unnecessary fear.
Depending on the size of your pork belly, you will need to decide if you want to cut the belly in half or not. How will you be hanging it? Will it be easier to hang and fit better in your curing tub if it is in smaller slabs? The bellies that I used from one of our pigs were almost 9 pounds each. I cut each of them in half to give me 4 square slabs, which fit my space better.
Mix your coarse kosher salt and cane sugar together in a large bowl that has a cover. The reason behind using coarse salt is that it takes longer to break down and be absorbed into the meat. The goal is not an overly-salty bacon. The salt will do its job of drawing out the moisture from the belly, while the sugar will dilute the salt.
Sprinkle some of the cure over the bottom of your curing container. Lay the first of your belly slabs into the tub (skin side down) and sprinkle an even layer of cure over the top of it. There is no need to rub it down. No need to scrub it into the skin or sides. Just a nice, even layer over the fleshy surface of the belly.
Do not give in to the temptation to lay the salt mixture on too thick. It’ll do its work without the excess. Repeat the process with each of your slabs.
You will have plenty of cure left over; keep it in your covered bowl. Place a cover on your tub and put it in your refrigerator. Mark it with a piece of masking tape and the date.
After 24 hours, you will find that a sizable amount of liquid has formed in the bottom.
You will also find the all of the cure has dissolved.
Remove the slabs, pour out the liquid, and sprinkle some cure in the bottom of the tub. Replace the slabs (preferably rotating them so that the same piece isn’t sitting on the bottom again), sprinkling cure evenly over the surface just as you did before.
Repeat this process every 24 hours. You want to keep the meat from sitting in the brine if possible. I found it helpful to put an inverted plate on the bottom of the tub to keep the bottom slab from sitting in water. Every day, you will notice less and less liquid accumulating. As the days pass, only sprinkle cure on the areas where it has been dissolved. There’s no need to add salt mixture to a surface where salt has not dissolved. Continue doing this daily until just a small amount of liquid is being extracted (up to two weeks; the longer the cure time, the saltier it will be).
At this point, your bellies are ready. You will notice that they have stiffened considerably, their thickness and weight reduced. Rinse any remaining cure off with cold running water. Pat dry with a towel and hang in an area that sees traffic- in my house, the kitchen is the perfect (and most logical) place. You don’t want your bacon somewhere that sees a lot of humidity or little airflow (bathroom? yuck.). Moisture is not your friend.
You can now begin using your bacon at any point. Simply cut a piece away from the rind and fry as you would any other bacon.
Except…it is so much more than “any other bacon”. It isn’t flavored. It’s the real deal.
And it’ll keep at room temperature for 6 months to a year under good conditions. Although I would imagine it won’t last nearly that long, considering it will be a constant temptation, just begging to become a part of your every meal. And I bet that not only will you always have an exciting conversation piece for your guests, but the way you look at bacon will forever be changed. For the good.
I know it has for me.
Bacon.
What a beautiful thing.
This post contains affiliate links. What this means is I link to various products (that I love & use and/or recommend), and if you decide it’s something you want, I will receive a small monetary compensation with no cost to you- just because you used my link to find it! This helps support my blogging activities and I thank you. Homestead on, my friends.
Wait, wait…. You mean, I, who has had her first garden this year, and has no animals other than the dog(yet), can cure bacon in my kitchen?! I need to go to the butcher’s shop tomorrow!
Bahahaha! YES! You can! That’s the spirit- you go girl! 😀
Just keep the dog away from the bacon, lol!
Haha yep! Keep it up high! 🙂
I did it! I made bacon! Now I just need to figure out a place to hang them that isn’t the knobs from my kitchen cabinets.:)
That is so awesome, Nicole! Good job! I’m sure it’ll look amazing, wherever it’s hanging 😉
Question, new at this… So, you just salt and cure, do you smoke it any or just cut and fry after curing?
It is ready to be used after curing. However, if you prefer a smoked flavor to your bacon, hang it NEAR your smoker (not IN the smoker due to the high humidity) for a day, allowing the smoke to drift over the meat. I hope this helps!
No way!!! Its that easy? I’m so raising a few pigs next year!
Haha, yes! Very easy. And pigs are so much fun, you will love it!
Ahh glad I read your blog. Ok first, my cured bacon has many soft spots where the liquid last pooled. Is that ok? One person said it acts as a bribe? But i still dumped the liquid. The edges and parts that weren’t able to pool are very firm. I cured it for 9 days in the fridge. I rinsed and dried them. They are now on racks until I make my next decision. To smoke or not to smoke. If I do decide to smoke, resources say in the smoker for 2-3 hours on low (160-175) internal temp of 150. But you suggest to hang it over? Also, if I do have soft spots should I not hang it but attempt to cure those spots again? Sorry si many questions. As always! Thanks .
Hey, it sounds like you’ve done everything perfectly! The only thing is, if you decide to smoke it- you cannot put it IN a smoker if you intend to let it hang at room temperature for the remainder of its life. If you put it IN a smoker, you’re exposing it to tons of humidity which could allow bacteria to grow. Hang it NEAR your smoker for a day, allowing the smoke to drift over the meat. It will absolutely make the meat wonderfully sweeter. If you plan to freeze your bacon afterwards, then by all means put it IN the smoker :).
Don’t worry about the soft spots. The longer it hangs, the more it will firm up. You may also see salt make its way to the surface in white, dry, rough patches. That’s okay. If it’s too salty for your taste, soak what you plan to use (as in, cut pieces of what you need) in cold water for an hour or more.
Call or message me any time!
How do you keep the occasional fly off of it?
You can wrap it in cheesecloth or cover it with cracked black pepper to keep flies away 🙂
I started the process tonight! But I have to go buy course salt tomorrow. I read up there it said to use a container with a lid but is that for the salt and sugar mixture or to cover the curing bacon in the fridge? Or does it even matter? 🙂
You do want to make sure it is covered. So if you don’t have a lid, just cover with plastic or foil. Have fun and ENJOY! 🙂
Thank you!!
did you do this again this year? As in, was it so good that you repeated it? Andy is a huge fan of smoked….not sure i can convince him that i want to do it this way this year unless you tell me that it’s tope notch….
I’ve made it every year, but I don’t do as much, and it depends on how many pigs we’re raising. Last year we did 4 and had more to experiment with, so I did dry cured bacon and also cured an entire belly half into pancetta. But if you are limited on bellies, and smoked bacon is what you prefer, then do that. If you feel you have some play room, I would recommend it- but keep in mind, this is NOT your breakfast bacon. It is savory, and used 1 slice at a time. I take a slice, chop it up, render it in a pan, then use it to give awesome salty earthy flavor to pork chops or steaks or rabbit legs, whatever I’m frying. Then the bacon butter/grease from the pan I pour over rice or potatoes. But it is nothing like your smoked breakfast bacon. I find it a completely different product, delicious, but you need so very little, that a quarter belly would last the year, and that is what I limit myself to. I hope this helps! 🙂
I cured my bacon for about 11 days. The last day it still had a smidge of liquid in the bottom of the container. Some recipes say to cure it until there is no liquid and I noticed you said to cure until there is just a little bit of liquid in your container. Did I read your recipe right? I am hoping mine will still be ok. It is amazing bacon…and a little goes a LONG way. The fice slabs I cured will do us for a loong time!
Wondering if this bacon will be a replacement for our breakfast bacon? I’m ok with it being different. But is it just not a good product for that intention.? Also do you ever make sausage?
Hi, Wanda. This bacon is definitely more of a savory bacon- it is not like your breakfast bacon. You use very little of it- and I use it to render down before frying pork chops, for example. Or sprinkled on top of my salad. But it is not like the bacon you have with your eggs in the morning, it’s just different. Amazing, but different. I hope this makes sense 🙂
And yes, we make all sorts of sausage! Breakfast links, ground pork sausage, andouille, brats, polish, etc etc….love it.