The lost art of Bacon

Uncured pork belly

Pork belly is a boneless cut of fatty meat from the belly of a pig. Pork belly is popular in Asian cuisine, and forms a part of many traditional European , Swiss and German dishes. In the United States, bacon is most often made from pork bellies. Bacon! It has a wonderful place in human history. Humans have eaten it for thousands of years, traded it as a staple of economies, vegetarians make exceptions for bacon. Bacon is the closest we can get to empirically proving the existence of God. Bacon, for lack of a better word, is The Shit. Bacon from scratch-cured, smoked, and cut at home- puts store-bought bacon to profound shame. I didn’t think it was possible to improve on perfection, but I had to find out. And so I bravely set out to into the unknown to discover the lost art of

Homemade Bacon

• First go to your local butcher and ask for uncured pork belly with the skin on. 
• It arrives in slabs about 20-30 inches long and about 8 inches across: you’ll recognize them from their familiar bacon-esque cross section. 
• They cost around $2.50-$3.50 a pound, and you’ll probably want a quarter slab—a piece weighing about 4 to 5 pounds but I am doing a whole slab half for bacon half for a pork belly sandwich. 
• Don't forget to make sure the pork belly has the rind (the skin) that's were all the flavor comes from.

Curing  

• Curing, back in the day, was the way people preserved meats without refrigeration.
• Salt, which consists primarily of sodium chloride, is the most important ingredient for curing food and is used in relatively large quantities. Salt kills and inhibits the growth of microorganisms by drawing water out of the cells of both microbe and food alike through osmosis. Concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to kill most species of unwanted bacteria.Once properly salted, the food's interior contains enough salt to exert osmotic pressures that prevent or retard the growth of many undesirable microbes.
•  A cure is 2 parts salt to 1 part sugar (for flavor, cuts the salt) and a few teaspoons pink curing salt #1 “sodium nitrite,” not Himalayan pink salt.  It’s what’s responsible for the bright color and savory bacon flavor.  You don’t have to use it, but your bacon will turn brown/gray when cooked (you’re cooking it well done, after all), and will taste like pleasantly seasoned spare ribs, porky rather than that classic bacon flavor.
• You can add a variety of things to this rub: black pepper, garlic, ground bay leaves, paprika, whatever. Use your imagination. What flavors you add will come through in the meat.
• This is the cure I am using for my pork belly  
  
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 cups fine sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon pink curing salt #1
  • 1/4 cup coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup toasted & coarsely ground coriander
  • 1/4 cup Fresh thyme 
  • 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
  • 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
  • 2 teaspoons chilli powder

• Now use the rub to cover the pork belly, then stick it in a zip lock bag or covered tightly with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for the next 7 days. Check on it periodically, maybe turning it over and draining any accumulated liquid.
• After that week, pull it out, rinse it off, pat it dry. You’ll notice it looks a lot like, well, cured meat.
• Now you’re going to leave it in the fridge, uncovered, for a day. Why? The pork belly needs to form a pellicle. “Forming the pellicle”, the pellicle is a tacky, gooey layer that forms on the outside of the meat after curing. Kind of gnarly, but it is essential for the next step.
    
  Smoking

•  Smoking is the final step, and the trickiest one. It imparts that necessary smoky bacon flavor, and helps give the meat that perfect bacon texture. Good news is, if you have a BBQ, it’s fairly easy to accomplish from scratch. If your looking for something a little more efficient you can find a decent 4 rack up right gas smoker at your local Home depot or Lowe's for right under $200. 
• Here is a list of different types of woods comely used for smoking:

1.  ACACIA - these trees are in the same family as mesquite. When burned in a smoker, acacia has a flavor similar to mesquite but not quite as heavy. A very hot burning wood.
2. ALDER - Very delicate with a hint of sweetness. Good with fish, pork, poultry, and light-meat game birds.
3. ALMOND - A sweet smoke flavor, light ash. Good with all meats
4. APPLE - Very mild with a subtle fruity flavor, slightly sweet. Good with poultry (turns skin dark brown) and pork.
5. ASH - Fast burner, light but distinctive flavor. Good with fish and red meats.
6. BIRCH - Medium-hard wood with a flavor similar to maple. Good with pork and poultry.
7. CHERRY - Mild and fruity. Good with poultry, pork and beef. Some List members say the cherry wood is the best wood for smoking. Wood from chokecherry trees may produce a bitter flavor.
8. COTTONWOOD - It is a softer wood than alder and very subtle in flavor. Use it for fuel but use some chunks of other woods (hickory, oak, pecan) for more flavor. Don't use green cottonwood for smoking.
9. CRABAPPLE - Similar to apple wood.
10. GRAPEVINES - Tart. Provides a lot of smoke. Rich and fruity. Good with poultry, red meats, game and lamb.
11. HICKORY - Most commonly used wood for smoking--the King of smoking woods. Sweet to strong, heavy bacon flavor. Good with pork, ham and beef.
12. LILAC - Very light, subtle with a hint of floral. Good with seafood and lamb.
13. MAPLE - Smoky, mellow and slightly sweet. Good with pork, poultry, cheese, and small game birds.
14. MESQUITE - Strong earthy flavor. Good with beef, fish, chicken, and game. One of the hottest burning.
15. MULBERRY - The smell is sweet and reminds one of apple.
16. OAK - Heavy smoke flavor--the Queen of smoking wood. RED OAK is good on ribs, WHITE OAK makes the best coals for longer burning. All oak varieties reported as suitable for smoking. Good with red meat, pork, fish and heavy game.
17. ORANGE, LEMON and GRAPEFRUIT - Produces a nice mild smoky flavor. Excellent with beef, pork, fish and poultry.
18. PEAR - A nice subtle smoke flavor. Much like apple. Excellent with chicken and pork.
19. PECAN - Sweet and mild with a flavor similar to hickory. Tasty with a subtle character. Good with poultry, beef, pork and cheese. Pecan is an all-around superior smoking wood.
20. SWEET FRUIT WOODS - APRICOT, PLUM, PEACH, NECTARINE - Great on most white or pink meats, including chicken, turkey, pork and fish. The flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory.
21. WALNUT - ENGLISH and BLACK - Very heavy smoke flavor, usually mixed with lighter woods like almond, pear or apple. Can be bitter if used alone. Good with red meats and game. 

• Today I am going to use a hickory for that sweet to strong, heavy bacon flavor and apple wood for its sweetness and it helps get that deep smokey color form my smoke and mesquite charcoal for my heat source since I am doing on a charcoal BBQ but your welcome to use any wood(s) you prefer.
• If your using a gas BBQ I recommend using a wood chip smoking box but if your a do it your self-er like me you can make a foil pouch, double warped with holes punched through the top so the smoke can escape. Then place the pouch directly on the heat source.   
• The key here is that you are only smoking your bacon, not cooking it. You don’t want your pork belly exposed to direct heat, so use about half the coals you normally would, move them all the way to the side, and toss a few pieces of wood (hickory, maple) soaked in water for half an hour on top to produce good smoke.
• Close the lid up, and keep the smoke coming out the vent nice and ample for the next two hours, by adding the necessary briquettes and wood chunks. It’ll take about 2 hours for a proper smoke. Never letting the temperature rise above 140 degrees.
• After about 2 hours, pull it out, and cut the skin away while its till warm, taking care to leave as much fat underneath as possible.

Enjoying

• Cool down in the fridge for a few hours before cutting slices to the thickness you prefer, cook over low heat to your desired floppy/crispy level.  It will keep for a week in the fridge, or months if frozen. 

• Bacon can be enjoyed sinfully by itself or on/in countless combinations of dishes and can even be candied for some amazingly savory deserts.

• Now if you wanted to do something different instead of taking the pork belly out after 2 hours crank the heat up to 250 degrees and smoke for another hour and a half and you will get a fully cooked pork belly.

• Pork belly can be used for many dishes as well as sandwiches.

Like this play on a Vietnamese sandwich I did.  

Smoked pork belly, pickled vegetables, Saffron Aioli, on a french roll served with a lemon ginger coleslaw   

Any way you serve it your in for a real treat, your efforts will be greatly rewarded and you will wonder why you were overpaying for ordinary bacon in the first place. Not only do you have the capability to customize your bacon to your taste but you will be saving $2-$3 a pound!! Now that's Tasty, comment if you have any questions, thanks for reading, this has been another day in the life of a mercenary chef.

- by Nash Rook