First Bacon; Not Firming Up

[Tom]

In anticipation of my new 3D's arrival, I bought 10 pounds of skin on pork belly and used the following cure that I found after digging thru page after page and forum after forum, none being much in agreement as to how much pink salt to use. Now, at day 6, turning the two separate 5 pound bellies every other day, they still don't have a firm feel like everyone suggests.

I'm wondering if I used too little pink salt?

The recipe calls for

1 tsp Pink Salt
3.75 Tbsp Salt
3.75 Tbsp Sugar

per 5 pounds.

Does that sound off? I may take the bellies out of the bags tonight, rinse, pat dry a bit, and put them back in the fridge on cooling racks to form a pedicle. Tomorrow, (Wednesday) my 3D is supposed to arrive, and I go back to work Thursday-Saturday and wouldn't be able to do anything until Sunday at the earliest, if I don't smoke them tomorrow.

If the recipe lacks enough pink salt, should I aim only for a hot smoke? Originally, I was planning on cold smoking only. I have a Foodsaver vacuum and chest freezer, so I can save this 10 pounds incase there isn't enough pink salt to properly cure it and protect it. Any advice welcome. I haven't done this in 10 years.

 

[Tom]

And for further clarification, I plan to do the proper break in procedure first, following with the smoking of the bacon. I know there's likely better recipes for cure that use metric weight for each ingredient rather than volumetric. I'll probably go that route the next time.

 

[Pork Belly]

I don't think you have enough salt or pink (nitrate) salt.
Basic Dry Cure
1Pound or 450 grams Kosher Salt
8 oz. or 225 Grams Sugar
2 oz. or 50 grams or 10 teaspoons Pink Salt- Sodium Nitrite
This makes enough cure to cure multiple slabs of belly. I detail the process in this posting.http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=1797.15
You can smoke what you have or can add some cure for a few days until it firms up.

 

[Tom]

I'm inclined to redo the cure then. My only hesitation was wondering what it might do to the flavor. One of the slabs got a maple and bourbon addition. That one I had planned on smoking over sugar maple. The other batch I was going to smoke over hickory, try the two, see what I like, sort of thing.

I did just flip them again tonight, it was much firmer than it was at day 4.

 

[Pork Belly]

I was somewhat intimidated by his salt box method, since you kind of have to be experienced in knowing how heavy to coat your belly, how much to shake off, so I was worried that I could end up with too much or too little pink salt.

Morton Tender Quick Cure (per pound of belly)
1 Tablespoon Morton Tender Quick

Tenderquick & Basic Dry Cure are Salt, Sugar, Sodium Nitrate and are interchangeable.  There is a series of pictures in the Dry Cured Bacon Post if you look for them that shows proper application of the cure. 

 

[BedouinBob]

Tom, don't worry. I would just add a bit more salt and pink salt to the bags you are curing in and let them go a bit longer. I doubt it will be bad either way and then you won't mess with the flavor profile too much. I think that will firm it up. If it doesn't, I would still smoke it and go to 150 deg IT. While it might turn out to not be traditional bacon, it will be really good and can be used the same. Let us know how it goes. We live for pictures! 

 

[DiggingDogFarm]

The long standing general rule-of-thumb when applying Cure #1/Pink Salt in dry form is "1 teaspoon per 5 pounds of meat."  Which equates to ~156ppm nitrite (plenty of cure in the context of short-term curing).
One level teaspoon being 5 to 6 grams of Cure #1/Pink Salt.

Why?

Cure #1/Pink Salt is formulated (6.25% nitrite) in such a way that when 4 ounces is applied to 100 pounds of meat the ingoing nitrite is 156ppm.

4 ounces to grams= ~113
100/5=20
113/20= 5.65 (~weight (in grams) of a teaspoon of Cure #1/Pink Salt)

Because the weight of a given volume of Cure #1/Pink Salt can vary and teaspoons can vary a bit in volume measured (capacity), it's a good idea to use a calculator and accurate gram scale (it helps with cure consistency from batch to batch and also ensures that ingredients aren't unnecessarily over-used and wasted): http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

One pound is ~454 grams.
454x5=2270

Below is the calculation for 5 lbs. of meat.
Notice the amount of Cure #1/Pink Salt is consistent with what I detailed above.

Unfortunately, firmness of the meat isn't always a reliable way to judge the progress or effectiveness of cure.

Why?

Numerous factors can affect the firmness of cured meat.
Meat varies greatly in composition and quality.
Bellies, for example, can vary greatly in fat content, quality of the fat (soft fat responds to cure and salt differently than firmer fat), etc.
Some bellies expel appreciable liquid when cured and some don't, etc.

I hope this info helps.

 

[SconnieQ]

I've seen the 1 tsp per 5 pounds of meat rule, but when I have looked up actual recipes, it is usually more like these amounts:
2 teaspoons for 5 pounds of belly: Ruhlman, Raichlen, Michael Symon
1/2 teaspoon per 1 pound of belly: amazingribs.com
2 teaspoons for 2-1/2 to 3 pounds of belly: Traeger Grills recipe

So you can see it varies a lot. I have also read that the MAXIMUM is 1 tsp per pound, but you would never want to use that much.

So Tom, if 1 tsp per 5 pounds is a general rule of thumb, then you should be fine to just continue on with your process.

 

[DivotMaker]

Kari, I learned what I know about equilibrium brining from Martin (DD Farm).  Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to follow his advice on anything related to curing meat....this guy knows his stuff!  By the way, that's the calculator I use for equilibrium brining; works great!

What he explains is how cure breaks down to parts per million.  There is a lot of confusion, among many, about the difference between cures like #1, #2, Tender Quick and Sugar Cure.  Once you understand the percentages of nitrites and/or nitrates in the cure, it makes more sense.  Martin understands this as well as anyone I've known.

 

[Plan2build]

Amounts of cure (Nitrite) are critical, and Martin's calculator should be used as a curing "bible".  The concept is not complicated however.  One PPM of Nitrite (or part per million) is equal to 1mg per 1kg so 156 PPM is 156mg per kg.  So 5 pounds of meat equals 2.3 kg.  Our calculation will be 156 mg/kg multiplied by 2.3kg = 358.8mg Nitrite required.  Since Cure #1 contains 6.25% Nitrite, we divide the required amount of 358.8 by 0.0625 (the percentage) and get 5740.8 mg or 5.7408 grams.

So if you look at Martins explanation of the weight variance of a teaspoon ranging between 5 or 6 grams, it is correct.  All my experimentation is based on Martin's calculator, and based on some guidance from the USDA and FDA, I would not exceed the 156 PPM limits unnecessarily, and in fact I operate more in the 120-140PPM range.

Using Brian's recipe for basic dry cure, and the basic calculations above, you have enough Nitrite to cure 20kg of meat at 156PPM.  So if you have a 5kg belly (I wish I could get them this size) you would use 1/4 of the dry cure.

Hope this helps clarify PPM calculations.  Follow Martin's calculator or Brian's basic dry cure, and you will be OK.

 

[Tom]

This is all quite reassuring. I ended up not adding any more cure. The meat has firmed up fairly well, but just not quite as firm as what I remember back when doing this with my dad years ago.

Tonight, I'll rinse and pat it dry and put it back in the fridge on racks, then plan to smoke it on Sunday. I'd really like to do a cold smoke if I can. But since it's my first batch of bacon on my own, and likely to be the first of many, I don't mind going with a hot smoke to an internal of 150 if necessary. I can always play with it later.

 

[Tom]

And actually, I meant to add, I have tons of scales, so the next time I'll use metric equivalents. My espresso hobby has me using scales that measure down to .o1 grams.

 

[Plan2build]

0.01g for coffee....that is precise!!!

 

[Tom]

So I'll be taking the bacon out of the cure tonight, rinsing, patting it dry as best I can, then back in the fridge for the pedicle formation. I'd like to use the cold smoke plate that I bought and I was thinking/wondering if I could just use a 2 liter bottle of water frozen, instead of buying a bag of ice?  I can only make about a dozen ice cubes at a time with the silcone trays I have, and I'd rather not have to drive to the store each time I want to cold smoke, for a bag of ice. Or deal with a full pan of water if I freeze a full pan in the chest freezer.

I had read somewhere about folks using 2 liter plastic bottles, does anyone here have any experience with them? It would be nice to have a reuseable heat sink like that. Especially if it eliminates having to deal with a big tray of water each time.

 

[BedouinBob]

Hey Tom, that should work fine since the bottles are on the cool side of the plate.

 

[Limey]

I have not yet done bacon but I cold smoke a lot of cheese. Frozen bottles are the only way to go.

 

[Tom]

Smoke's rising!

I must a admit a bit of a cop-out. I have 2 two liter bottles, but they're still completely full of seltzer water and I don't want to waste them by dumping them out, and I'm too antsy to get this cook going, since I've drug it out too long as it is. I finally yesterday took the belly out of the cure, rinsed well, dried and put them on cooling trays over pans in the fridge. They dried out pretty well even though it wasn't a full 24 hours.

I put them on, with a heavy dose of white pepper on the regular maple/brown sugar one. Set it for 180ºF with the probe in, and 3 oz of sugar maple. I also slid in the cold smoke plate, but I doubt that will help if I don't go back out there and drop the heat to 100ºF and let it idle for a few hours.

Having learned my lesson about the cure method, I think I'll do things a bit different the next time, including using the cold smoke process for the whole thing.

I can't remember the last time I had this fragrant of a smell coming off of maple. This stuff in incredibly sweet and almost like a frankincense spice note.

 

[Tom]

Tony explained the need for me to auto-tune the Auber, I really need to do that ASAP, because I'm getting a bit irritated watching the temp on the second cook now sit at the same temp for hour after hour after hour. It goes up 2-3 degrees then falls back 2 degrees over the course of an hour. I'm obviously new to this smoker but I never imagined it would take 9 hours and to be still waiting on an incomplete smoke to get some meat to 150º.

 

[Tom]

I'm learning by trial and error, but mostly error on my part. I assumed that since the temp was fluctuating sometimes 30 degrees above my set temp (210 instead of 180) that it would be too risky to increase the heat to 200 like others have, in fear of rendering too much fat. So I sat and watched TV for the evening, eyeing the 3D thru the balcony window. It's been 11 hours now and it just hit 140 internal temp. At this rate, the meat probably wouldn't be done till the middle of the night, so I pulled out the cold smoking plate (that I probably should have removed a LONG time ago) and dialed the temp up to 200.

 

[Tom]

Certainly worth the effort though. I let it cool for about 15 minutes, peeled and saved the skin, and sliced off enough to square up the edges of each and baked them for about 13 minutes (I'm an oven convert vs pan frying). They're both a bit too salty so when I end up using the slices, I'll dip them in some simmering water for a bit before cooking up.

They both got the same base cure components of maple sugar and brown sugar, but the bacon on the left also got a bit more maple sugar, some bourbon (reduction) and like 1 drop of vanilla extract, all mixed up and tossed in with the cure. The bacon on the right just got the base cure ingredients and a healthy dose of Muntok white pepper.

I'm happy they're not smokey, I prefer it on the light side. But maybe next time around, I'll do the proper cold smoke and extend it more, because it's rather light on the smoke.

The bourbon vanilla tastes even better than it sounds. I'm not sure I can even detect a note of vanilla, it's just got a pleasant sweet note to it. This one I'll use in low carb salads to add protein and fats where I think the slightly sweet component will add something special to the greens.

The peppered bacon will get used with the regular fare, breakfast and maybe some kind of BLT.

So much to learn, I thank everyone who's chimed in. I can't wait to slice it up and get it packaged.