Green Cured Bacon
Intro: Green Cured Bacon
I’m not a fan of most manufactured chemical cured bacon, most of the supermarket we can get here is tasteless and pumped with that much water it sticks to the pan when you cook it!
Bacon isn’t hard to make yourself and it gives you a real sense of achievement to make your own.
Before the widespread commercial use of nitrate cures, bacon was simply cured with salt, or salt and sugar, the result was grey when cooked, more like cooked pork, I don’t mind that at all. It also won’t last as long in the fridge as nitrate cured.
A number of vegetables contain nitrate, one of the richest is celery. So lately I’ve been adding celery juice to my bacon salt/sugar cure to increase shelf life a little and bring some of that characteristic pink colour into the game, why not!
STEP 1: Curing the Belly
2 cups salt
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon of Juniper Berries
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Lemon rind
1 teaspoon mustard seed
Handful of fresh parsley
1 cup celery Juice
Blend all the ingredients in a blender to form a wet textured cure
Cover the pork belly in the cure mix and refrigerate for5-7 days, turn the pork once a day.
Quite a bit of liquid is extracted from the pork during the curing, this is exactly what you want to happen, this makes the bacon firm and it fries better, too much moisture steams the bacon as it fries, anything that helps make bacon crisp is a good thing!
STEP 2: Purge
Rinse the pork belly thoroughly to remove the cure.
Cut and fry a small piece, this is to test for saltiness, if it is too salty, soak in clean water for a few hours to leech some of the salt out. Test it again!
If need be you can soak the cured belly in clean water for a day or two.
After this I will run a little Gin or Scotch onto the surface to dry off the water, use whatever alcohol you prefer.
STEP 3: Smoke
Allow the pork to air dry in the fridge overnight, this forms a pellicle which helps the smoke stick.
Smoke and cook the pork belly gently till the bacon is 60°C, I’m using my Gas smoker box, but a small pile of charcoal in a kettle with a couple of chunks of hickory or some other flavour wood would do the job as well.
STEP 4: Rest
Once the bacon has cooked, let it rest in the fridge for a day before enjoying
STEP 5: Slice
Slice the bacon into strips however thick you like
STEP 6: Breakfast
Now it's the taste test!
Look at how lovely and crispy that bacon fries up!
18 Comments
ronanry 4 years ago
InstructableSD 4 years ago
myk3yth 4 years ago
As with any curing, cleanliness is paramount.
For ham, I vac-pack it straight out of the smoker and sous-vide it, then leave it a minimum of a week for the smoke to ‘normalise’ and not leave it tasting like an ashtray.
“To prevent botulism (a relatively rare foodborne illness most often caused by improper home canning), sodium nitrite in the form of curing salt is often also used in cured and processed meats. But because bacon is fried before eating, botulism isn't an issue, so the use of curing salt is considered optional.”
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
dug1000 4 years ago
However, I'm thought that fat could begin to render at that point and you would loose some awesomeness. That's when I considered sous vide! Fat is less likely to render in a sous vide at that temperature and the result would safely last months in the freezer. I'm currently working on a molasses and black pepper bacon and will try it out.
I will probably try celery juice or celery salt next time to see if I can keep some of the pink color, like you mentioned
InstructableSD 4 years ago
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/general/for_safety_sake.html
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/general/food_pres_temps.html
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
My advice is to only make small batches and use it, don't store it
InstructableSD 4 years ago
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
InstructableSD 4 years ago
While cleanliness is important in food production, botulism spores are in the air around us and can come in contact with food, no matter how clean you keep things.
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
Henmarsh 4 years ago
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
UrbanGriller 4 years ago
billbillt 4 years ago
yrralguthrie 4 years ago
Bacon here is pretty good and never sticks to the skillet.