I mean, who doesn’t love bacon? I even know some vegetarians & vegans say if they ever switch back to meat, bacon would be the reason. Ethical, health, whatever notwithstanding, this family loves bacon. I mean, we even bacon wrapped a breakfast fatty, wrapped them in dove breasts, as well as traditional frying up bacon for part of your breakfast meals.
So, with all this consumption of bacon, I figured it was high time I tried to cure & make some myself.
But I couldn’t find whole pork belly to purchase. Walmart carries it, but it’s pre-sliced. I searched high & low online. I wasn’t ready to go to local butchers and ask, I wanted to get an idea how much it costs per pound before committing. So, I just continued to occasionally do a Google search online here and there until I finally got frustrated and decided to pull the trigger and just start going to stores and ask.
I had errands to run one day that put me near a Whole Foods (there’s not one near us to be efficient for regular grocery runs) so I figured I’d try there first.
Bingo! Right out the gate, they had one 6 lbs slab left in their inventory and I grabbed it. Came to roughly $5/lbs if I remember correctly. I was excited. So, when I got home, I split it in half. 3 lbs for Chasu Pork when I make Tonkatsu Ramen (a future blog) and 3 lbs for bacon.
As for the how, I found this recipe on AmazingRibs.com. I’ve done a few of their recipes on there, including Katz Deli Style Pastrami and haven’t been disappointed yet.
So, added the ingredients in the gallon ziplock bag, added the pork and…oh dear.
Soooooo…you know how in the AmazingRibs link it says for 3 lbs, a gallon bag is fine? Not for this slab. It’s too long, so I had to fold it in half to get it to fit. Not a huge issue, but this means with the added height from the fold, only half the belly will be immersed in the marinade/liquid at a time. I planned to turn it daily regardless, but I like my meat submerged. Wait, that didn’t sound right. (Have I mentioned I have a maturity of a middle-school kid) So, belly in the fridge and turn daily for a week.
A week passed and time for the smoker. I pulled and rinsed the cured belly, dried it a bit with paper towels, set my smoker to “Smoke” setting, which is their lowest setting and hovers between 180-190 for a good, long smoke and set my belly in the smoker until an internal temp of the suggested 150.
About 3 hours later and my alarm went off when it reached 150, so I pulled the now officially bacon to cool, then bag and put in the fridge for use the next morning.
As promised, the next morning I was ready to fry up some homemade bacon. Pulled the slab out, cut 4 generously thick slices for breakfast and fired up the cast iron.
Bacon fried, eggs scrambled, buns buttered & toasted, time to put it all together. (I may have snuck a piece of bacon by itself before breakfast)
Verdict: Really good! Sweet from the maple syrup, smokey from the smoker, and heck – it’s BACON! The bacon had a more of a toothy/chew feel to it compared to store-bought. Someone told be it’s because store brands inject their marinade which breaks down the meat faster than a traditional marinade. I like this way better.
Will I do this again? I’m not even gonna dignify that question with an answer. Now, I will still buy store-brand when I need to wrap bacon around something as part of a dish (poppers, meatloaf, etc) but when it comes to frying bacon, I think this will be the new norm for this household.
Confessions of a Habitual Nerd 
Mmmmmm…submerged meat! š
For me, I think if I went back to eating meat, it would be salmon, thinly sliced, on a bagel…
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With tomatoes, purple onions and capers with cream cheese…man, I loves me some lox. I need to try to make this as well…
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