Making bacon! (Not as smutty as it sounds)

[Looby Loo]

We decided to make some bacon after reading in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Meat book how easy it was and how much better it tasted.




First of all, find a nice friendly local butcher and get your piece of belly pork.  This piece is roughly a third of a belly



Bone it out - this is easy



Make a rub from salt, muscovado sugar, crushed juniper berries, crushed black peppercorns and bay leaves



Mix it all together



Rub it into all sides of the meat.  Store in a covered non-metallic container somewhere cool



Drain off any liquid and re-apply rub every day



Keep on doing it for about a week until no more liquid seeps out.  Wash off any excess rub and dry



Chop up and use as lardons



Or thinly sliced use as rashers.  What you see here is only a fraction of what you get.

This is our second one and it's really worth the little effort it takes.  No water comes out during cooking and it tastes like bacon should!  If you do buy your belly pork from a friendly local butcher it takes away a few pennies from the likesof  Mr Tesco too.

We're just about to do our third and considering curing a leg for gammon.

[Derekthefox]

I am extremely impressed Looby Loo !!! I cannot claim that I will end up doing this, but I am so tempted, and have been privileged to taste 'real' bacon from rare suppliers ... I would also be interested to know how practical it is to smoke one's own bacon, for I adore smoked meat ...

Derekthefox

[boris]

WOW! Bow down before the great HFW, long may he reign. Very inspirational character. This bacon looks great stuff. And pretty straightforward too.  Will give it a try, I think.

[tim]

Inspirational. Looby Loo!

You ought to team up with Denning? http://www.denning.org.uk/cooking/mains/bolognese/

[northener]

Brilliant post. Is it easy enough to slice?

[Looby Loo]

Thanks all, I can post up the exact recipe if anyone is interested in either trying it themselves (it is worth it I promise, after boning out the meat and making the mix it takes just a couple of minutes each day to drain the liquid and re-apply the cure) or just want to have a read on Hugh's take on it.

Brilliant post. Is it easy enough to slice?

Thank you, well we bought a cheap(about a tenner+postage) new hand cranked meat slicer from e-bay before we made our first one, that slices it a treat, but as long as you have a good sharp knife and peel back the rind it should'nt be a problem I wouldn't have thought.


One of these is the next thing on my wishlist.



From THESE PEOPLE

Well, you've got to do something when you can get down the plot as much haven't you

EDIT.....

DerektheFox...you can buy a smoked cure mix from the sausage people I linked above..

http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/bacon_cures.html

I might have a bash at that after Chrimbo, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Debs]

...and if you don't want to pay through the nose for parmesan -  Aldi 

sell parmesan reggiano for approx £2.

Debs

[micsmum]

Weeeee  deffo going to try this one. Have a good butcher just down the road

Many thanks for that looby
Helen

[micsmum]

Oh! Forgot to ask - what sort of salt? (table' sea salt etc)
and
any particular ratios for the ingredients?
and
light or dark Muscovado?

Thanks
Helen

[Derekthefox]

My approach would be to go with the ratios you feel are right ... I would choose dark moscavado as it has more molasses ... mmm

Derekthefox 

[Jessie]

Oooh, Looby Loo, I really enjoyed reading through your post about your bacon making. I've just finished making 10kg of bacon, streaky and back, for the first time. We had someone raise a pig for us this year and collected it a few weeks ago. It is sooooo easy to make bacon, I'll never buy bacon again now, it tastes so much better than anything in the shop as well and so much cheaper when you make your own. Next on my project list for pig processing is making sausages, we had the butcher make them for us this time around but next year I'll be trying that for myself. Great post, well done, your bacon looks lovely.

PS, I used the classic dry cure mix from Franco's shop (www.sausagemaking.org) it works a treat.

[grassroots]

I also am up for this. So off to the village butcher in the morning, not had good bacon in years

[Derekthefox]

I will have to wait until after Christmas now I think ...

Derekthefox

[Jessie]

I stored the bacon in the fridge whilst making to keep it cool, fortunately we've got a spare fridge in the garage, I certainly wouldn't have the space in the kitchen fridge over christmas.

Tip about slicing, I've got a meat slicer which makes slicing a pleasure but even with that I found partly freezing the bacon keeps it firm and makes slicing much easier.

[Derekthefox]

Done !!!

I got 5 lb of draft pork as it was termed in our butcher, mixed up the spices etc by eye (the way I do everything), and rubbed the pork as in the picture ... The meat was essentially boned when I bought it, just a couple of tiny rib ends to remove.

Just got to wait now ...

Derekthefox

[Hyacinth]

I'm gonna give this a go for SURE and many thanks for posting the recipe. Have sourced a farm which breeds/butchers its own meat in as far as a stress-free environment as is possible when you're for the chop - so to speak - and I'm already drooling about eating bacon again....

Thanks again.

[Derekthefox]

Well mine is on its 3rd day Alishka and it is looking good. The only think I have done in addition to the apparent method is sprinkle a little extra salt over the meat, it seemed to help with drawing the liquid ... I can't wait until I cut the first slices ... !!!

Derekthefox

[BAGGY]

Can we have a recipe of sorts please ?  Approximation would be good - tablespoons to pound of pork ??

[Jesse]

Derek, go easy on the salt, I've heard that the RC recipe can be a little on the salty side if it is left too long.

I have a bag of bacon cure left over from www.sausagemaking.org, the bag makes 30kg and I only made 10kg, don't plan on making any more bacon for a while now, if anyone is interested in trying it I'll be pleased to give some away. It's the traditional dry cure and there's a recipe/instructions on the website or in here. I found leaving the cure on for 5 days for streaky and 6 days for back bacon is perfect.

[Jesse]

Baggy, from RC Cookbook:

"pork bellies (thin ends)
salt

Optional
saltpetre (available from sausagemaking, link above)
soft brown sugar
black pepper

It's hard to give exact quantities for your dry-cure mix but for 4 thin ends, 1kg fine salt mixed with a teaspoon of saltpetre will get you started. Add 100g brown sugar and a tablespoon of cracked pepper if you like. You may need to make up a little more cure mix after the first few days.

The process couldn't be more smple. Place one belly at a time on a clean work surface and, with clean hands, just grab a handful of the dry cure mix and start rubbing it with your fingers into all the surfaces of the meat. When it is thoroughly salted all over, place in a clean wooden or plastic box, move on to the next belly and follow the same procedure.

The finished bellies can be stacked on top of each other and left, covered, in a cool place safe from flies. Keep the leftover cure mix. After twenty four hours you will notice that the meat has leached salty liquid into the bottom of the container. Remove the bellies, pour off this liquid and rub the bellies with handfuls of fresh cure mix. Re0stack the bellies, preferably moving the two from the bottom on to the top. Repeat the process daily. Your bacon will be ready after just five days, though if you cure it for longer (up to two weeks) it will keep for longer."