Makin' Bacon - Part 2

It's been eight days of curing for the pork belly and now it's ready to EAT!:). After removing it from the packaging, I rinsed it thoroughly under cold water to remove all the excess salt (there wasn't much at all!).

Now comes the tough part, slicing. My slices were awful, but it's not like I'm trying to sell this or anything, so it's okay for now.


Hopefully, practice will make this easier. I found that it was MUCH easier to cut through if it was cold, so next time I'll pop it back in the fridge half way through.

And that's it! Just heat up a pan, slap in some slices and you've got DELICIOUS bacon with a hint of maple.

(Also, something to note, if you don't make the slices even all the way down, then the bacon will not cook evenly. I figured this out b/c my slices were a bit off the mark. The fat doesn't have time to cook down before the lean part is crispy.)

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Makin' Bacon - Part 1

Okay, my first attempt at homemade bacon was this morning. I got the recipe from HubPages.com












I started with a huge slab of pork belly and cut it into evenly sized slabs. I'm hoping I estimated the 5lbs. required in the recipe correctly. Otherwise, I'll need to adjust the salt in the next batches.

I'll store the other slabs in my freezer (double-bagged). If you have a freezer bag system, that would probably be a much better way to store these, but I'm not willing to spend the money on one just yet.






Recipe:

5lb. slab of pork belly
1/4c. salt (I used kosher)
1tsp. pink salt (bought from The Spice House
1/2c. maple syrup or honey (I used maple syrup)





Directions:

Slather the pork belly in the salt mixture (I didn't do this, but next time I'll mix the two salts together FIRST!).






Then slather with maple syrup.










Put it in a ziplock baggie and store in the fridge for 7 days (or until the bacon no longer gives when you poke it). Turn the bacon every day.

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