Homemade Bacon

Bacon. Need I say more?! Crispy. Salty. Chewy. Delightful with maple syrup. Deliciously easy to make! You’ve heard my tales of making Breakfast Pork Sausage and Sweet Italian Sausage, so I figured it was time to share my rendition of Homemade Bacon too.

Before I took the swinely leap on makin’ bacon, I thought it was a complicated process. The reality is it’s completely the opposite. Bacon making is a kind of out-of-sight and back-of-your-mind process! Patience and a meat smoker are the biggest requirements. (If you don’t have a smoker, no worries. You can finish cured bacon in your oven.)

To get started, you need a few ingredients…

• Pork Belly: Literally the belly of a pig. These are found in the meat section of your local megamart and are generally without a skin. I go for skinless pork bellies. The skin, or rind, can be difficult to remove and makes a chewy, tough edge on finished bacon. Look for 9 to 10 pound pork bellies for this recipe.
• Kosher Salt: The large flake size of kosher salt makes it perfect for drawing the moisture out of the pork belly.
• Pink Curing Salt: AKA Prague Powder or Cure No. 1, pink curing salt is a mixture of table salt and sodium nitrate. It’s essential to avoid getting sick from botulism in cured meats to be cooked. You can purchase pink curing salt online or in sporting goods shops. (If sodium nitrate turns you off, there are several alternatives you can choose from. Disclaimer: I have only used pink curing salt in my recipe.)
• Sugar: I use a combination of honey and brown sugar in my recipe. Honey is a natural preservative to avoid botulism, but adds a light sweetness. The brown sugar does the same as well!
• Spices: Spices like paprika, garlic and red pepper flakes are classic bacon flavors. But the sky is the limit with how you want to spice yours up! Try others like cumin, coriander, cracked black pepper, onion powder, and juniper berries.

Let’s get this party started…

The Hubby is in charge of all smoked meats in this house. He is the grill and smoke-master expert! When it’s bacon makin’ time, our Masterbuilt electric smoker is boss! We have used a wide variety of fruit woods, but apple chips are preferred. Apple wood gives the finished bacon a smoky fruit smell that pairs scrumptiously with the honey and spices in it! Smoking bacon with maple, oak or peach wood results in delicious-ness too.

The Goldilocks temperature for smoking bacon is around 200 degrees F. It’s not too hot and not too cold. But the key is having the bacon reach an internal temp of 150 degrees F. Electric probe thermometers are ideal for checking this. These days, they range from about $10 to over $100. (A quick search on Amazon will hook you up!) If you aren’t keen on an electric smoker, or meat smoker, use your oven. Set it for 200 degrees and cook the bacon on a cooling rack over a baking sheet until the meat reaches 150 degrees F. Boom, shakalaka bacon!

The carnivores in our house (including me) love bacon, so it’s a bit of sticker shock to buy a pound of paper-thin porky pieces at our local megamart. At the time of this writing, a 16 ounce package (1 pound) of bacon ranges from $5.49 to $9.99. If you want “thick cut” bacon, expect to pay more.

If you opt to make Homemade Bacon, expect the bulk of your cost to come from the pork belly. It’s generally around $3.69 per pound. You’ll pay pennies on the dollar for the salts, sugar, honey and spices. So, with this round of bacon, we’re paying about $4 to $4.25 a pound. Any way you slice it, once you try Homemade Bacon you’ll never look at store-bought the same way!

Homemade Bacon

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Costing less than $4 per pound, homemade bacon is both tasty and cost effective.  The bigger question is how thick will you slice it?

• Author: Erin Thomas
• Prep Time: 20 Minutes
• Cook Time: 3 Hours + 12 Days Aging
• Total Time: About 3-1/2 Hours + Aging Time
• Yield: Four 2–1/2 Pound Pieces of Bacon 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

1–10 pound pork belly (without the skin)

1/2 cup kosher salt

4 tsp. pink curing salt (aka Cure No. 1 or Prague Powder)

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup honey

2 tbsp. red pepper flakes

2 tbsp. sweet smoked paprika

2 tsp. garlic powder

Fruit wood chips (i.e. apple, peach, or cherry)

Instructions

Rinse, pat dry and cut the pork belly into 4 equal sized pieces.  Place each pork belly piece into a gallon-sized zip-top bag.  Pour even amounts of the honey over each of the four pork belly pieces.

In a bowl, combine and evenly mix the kosher salt, pink curing salt, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, paprika, and garlic powder.  Sprinkle even amounts of salt mixture (about 1/3 heaping cup) over each pork belly piece.  Squeeze the air out of and seal each bag.  Massage the honey and salt mixture into each pork belly piece.  Place the sealed bags on a baking sheet in the refrigerator.

For 7 to 10 days, flip and rotate the four bags daily on the baking sheet in the refrigerator.  When the pork belly pieces become firm, the pork is ready to dry age in the refrigerator.

Remove the pork from each bag and rinse thoroughly with water.  Pat dry, and place each piece in a single layer on a cooling rack placed on the baking sheet. Return the pork pieces the refrigerator, uncovered, for 2 more days.

**At the end of the 2 days, set up your smoker according to the manufacturer’s directions using fruit wood chips  (i.e. apple, peach, cherry).  The temperature for the smoker should reach and maintain a temperature of 200 degrees F.  Place the pork pieces in the smoker and smoke until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees F (about 3 hours).

Remove the bacon from the smoker and allow to cool to room temperature on cooling racks.  Store the bacon in a tightly sealed container (i.e. gallon zip-top bag, plastic wrap layers, etc.).  Bacon can be stored int eh refrigerator for up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 3 months.  Slice and use accordingly.

Notes

**Don’t have a meat smoker, or want the investment, opt to make bacon in your oven.  Set the oven to 200 degrees F.  After rinsing and patting dry the pork belly pieces, set them on a cooking rack placed on a baking sheet. Cook the pork belly until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees F.  Cool, store, and use accordingly.