Home Dry Cured Bacon

:scream: :scream: :scream:

Heavens above!!! How did that happen?

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:grin:

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The bacon looks fab, but I bet that’s some horrific unsalted grease stuff - the ship spoiled for the ha’porth of tar.

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Daft question but doesn’t the curing process mean that it could be stored without freezing if kept in the right conditions? If so, do we know for how long? Most meatmen & families would be through 2 Kg of nice bacon in no time.

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A month in the fridge or 6 months if frozen, according to the RC website.

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Even worse - Ann’s favourite - Anchor spreadable :roll_eyes:

I’m always impressed by the Spanish hams you see hanging in Tapas bars apparently for ages. Dry but not always even that cool in those places.

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I think it’s roughly proportional to the salt content :thinking:

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:grimacing:

Gaga_is_apalled

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That hair-do makes it looks like she’s wearing a wig on top of another wig. Which I absolutely would not put past her.

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with the little fat catchers to stop them dripping on the customers.

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https://twitter.com/ESPNcricinfo/status/1372865437633966085?s=20

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My turn now: toasted ciabatta rolls, one with egg and white pepper, the other with lashings of English mustard.

The bacon is epic, the rind is like crackling! :heart_eyes::heart_eyes:

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We just ate Jim’s bacon. It was delicious.

In fact it was a real eye-opener compared even to the best bacon we can get from real butchers locally: no water pissing out of it - none at-all, no excess salt either - just the right amount for flavour and preservation, but lots and lots of luvverly piggy flavour!

Mmmmm… Pig!

Also - nice lot of fat cooked-out, which I love to keep a dripping-pot of handy for cooking certain things.

Thanks Jim!

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You’re both very welcome :smiley:

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After curing two slabs, both of which turned out Ok, but as Paul mentions above, the flavour was very porky rather than bacony… Also Ann was a bit meh because she only likes smoked bacon.
So for this third slab, we’re smokin! :smiley:

Bacon was cured using the same (River Cottage) method. Interestingly, (I remembered to weigh before/after this time :roll_eyes:) it only lost 10% in weight during curing (2.950kg down to 2.648kg).
Using a smoking tube (tenner on the net) and mixed fruit wood pellets. It is supposed to burn for approx 5 hours. Our bbq has vents top and bottom, so should be ideal for this.
Taste test later…

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One fill of the smoking tube lasted 4 hours. It’s been quite a warm day here and the internal temperature of the bacon crept up during the smoking from 5° (from the fridge) to 32°.
Not sure if this is significant, but I decided to leave it at that. Now back in the fridge.
Bacon has taken on a lovely colour though…

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Superb, I have hughs meat book. Really got to do this

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Looks epic mate :ok_hand:

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