Home cured bacon. Stage one, the making of.

Making, or curing, your own bacon easier than you think and with the price of bacon soaring it really can pay for itself.

I bought my curing salt ready mixed from Sausagemaking.org.  I prefer the All Purpose Curing Salt as it alleviates any anxiety about food safety and guarantees the result will be tasty bacon.

I would recommend ordering the smallest amount for your first go as it only requires 15Gm per 1Kg of meat, the bags are sealed 250g units.











I wanted streaky bacon and lardons, I used:

• A YS belly pork (we love streaky bacon)
• A quantity of All Purpose Curing Salt weighed out according to the weight of your pork
• Latex gloves to help prevent cross contamination
• A clean and scalded work area (I use a plastic tray)
• Ziplock or vacuum sealer bags
• Accurate kitchen scales

Method.

It's best to gather everything you need in preparation, this can get messy.

Once you've weighed out your curing salt, rub it well into every nook and cranny on your pork.  It won't seem like a lot, but it's plenty.  You can remove the rind and eat as crackling, yum.  I chose to leave it on.  The photo to the right shows the pork just before I finished rubbing the cure in.

As simple as that, it's bagging up time now.

I don't have a vacuum sealer and so I use two bags, trying to squash as much air out as possible.

Label your bag and put in a low area of your fridge, I use the crisper drawer.  This is coolest and presents less opportunities for cross contamination.



Allow to cure for 1 day per 13mm (1/2 inch) thickness of pork plus an extra two days over that.  Ideal temperature is 2-4 degrees Centigrade.  Turn it over every two days, there will appear to be a lot of liquid in the bag, don't worry, this is normal.

Once the curing time is over quickly rinse your bacon under running water, don't soak it though.

I will report back on my finished bacon in a few days, hopefully in cooked form :)