Bought a 14 pound pork belly, partially thawed it and cut in half, put half back in freezer. Took skin off the half I am using and weighed in at 5 pounds cut it in half and brushed a little bourbon on both sides, applied brine and sealed in a vac bag. into the fridge for a 7 day brine
the one in the pic is at least 10 years old, it replaced one that was about 5 years old that was still fine I just wanted a newer model / gave the old one away to a co worker, not sure if he still has it or not I have had no issues with them myself
I'll smoke it on my pellet grill, probably use a fruit blend mix http://firewoodhoardersclub.com/forums/threads/pellet-pics.8405/
i picked up a belly at Cash and Carry today. How long did yours take to thaw? Mine is 15 pounds. I also got 3 racks of back loin ribs, $24@ $2.68 a pound. They're usually about 15-20 dollars a rack at the regular supermarket.
did not take to long, I pulled it out of freezer early morning around 6ish and was able to unroll it and cut in half around 5, so i guess around 10 - 11 hours to get it to a point where i could cut it and take the skin off, skin came off much easier than i expected, 3 more days in the fridge and i can wash them, than back in fridge overnight to form the pelicle and on the smoker Sunday morning
just put it on a large baking sheet on the kitchen counter until it was thawed enough to unroll,than I unrolled it and cut in half, and put half back in freezer and took the skin off the half I am using and than cut that in half and put in fridge for awhile
Yea, growing up in the 70's, my mom would leave frozen chicken out on the counter all day to cook for dinner. No one ever got sick.
ok, here it is. did not come out as good as the batch I made last year, not sure why. Its a little on the salty side, the wife usually has kosher salt in the house but this time she bought sea salt in bulk, she said its the same thing but I am not too sure about that. thinking I should have let it soak in water more after came out of dry brine, buts its edible out of the brine and rinsed on the smoker off the smoker with 150 degree IT on the slicer in the pan and on the plate View attachment 45106
Looks very good! My recipe calls for rinsing the slab off after curing. I follow amazingribs, no recipe there has ever let me down. One thing I'm not sure about, is that they say not to stack the slabs on top of each other. I don't see the point of that. The bags are sealed, the brine still gets turned every night and still sits at the bottom of the bag. I have 5 two pound slabs after trimming my 15 pound belly. That took some effort, rind on.
Yeah, sea salt and kosher salt are not the same thing. That may be why. Sea salt has many different tastes to it, depending on the sea it comes from. Some of those tastes may have gone against your favor this time. Using sea salt is also more expensive, and due to the differences in taste vs kosher salt that you know what you are getting every time, reliably, I use sea salt only as a final sprinkle before eating. Here's a little more on this, if you are interested in reading about salt. It's better than pounding sand. http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-need-to-use-kosher-salt.html
I followed the bacon recipe on the Treager site, Yes you definitely need to rinse off the slabs after curing, you can actually slice off a small piece after curing /rinse and fry it up for a taste test, if it is a little salty for your taste they say to soak the slabs in water for awhile I cut my 14 pound belly in half and took the rind off and ended up with about 5 pounds before the cure and the smoke, other half of the belly is in the freezer till the next time I want to make bacon post some pics of your process and final product
I made some bacon a while ago. Same Willamette Valley pork belly bought from the Mexican grocery. but no rind, and they were able sell me just a half belly before they fried them all up for chicharonnes. I did not locate any local Prague powder last time, So I used a Morton's Tenderquick, which is a mix of prague powder,sugar, 0.5% Sodium Nitrate (Preservative), 0.5% Sodium Nitrite (Preservative). Just seems easy enough to use,1 tablespoon per pound. I added 1/4 cup water to the per pound TenderQuick recipe, forf a wet brine. I'll have pics next weekend, after the cure and smoke.
Elderthewelder looks great. Would you feel like sharing the recipe. My neighbors are getting ready to butcher, but have never made bacon. Kind of strange as they have a smokehouse and all. They make everything else though.
