After seeing all of Kevin's wonderful photos, I decided to give the curing process a go myself. Here is about 5 lbs of pork belly not quite 24 hours into the curing process. It should take 7 - 10 days of curing, then some rest and smoking before it turns into bacon...
Nice! There is nothing quite so good as home cured bacon. Haven't made any in a while, I'll have to get ahold of belly soon and get some going.
I pulled 8lbs of cured pork loin from the smoker after about 9 hours at low temps and plenty of applewood smoke…voila!.. Canadian Bacon! These will hang for a day or two in the fridge to mellow & firm up!
Those look good. The bacon is still baconing in the fridge. The color is looking good and it looks to be firming up a little. Tonight is a quick rack of ribs, these are about halfway there. I had to cook a little hot as I started them late.
Lookin' good there, Dale! (Now awaiting someone to ask the obvious question, 'why the potato?'...... I use an old wine cork. )
I did a tri-tip today, came real nice. Put a little bit of oak in with the coals. Forgot to take a picture, though.
The bacon came out of the cure yesterday and smoked this morning. I let it dry in the fridge over night and added cracked black pepper, garlic, and onion powder. It took about 2 hours for the internal temp to come to 150F. I put them on at 180F and pulled them with a grill temp of 225F. Now they are in the fridge firming up so I can slice and pack them this evening. All in all it was fun and not overly difficult. I only tried a small end piece prior to smoking to make sure it wasn't overly salty.
I just realized that I hadn't taken any more pics of the bacon making progress. I will probably do it again with what I learned, but it will be after some buckboard or Canadian bacon. I have a boneless loin in the freezer, so I think the CB will be next, just need to figure things out. Here is a bad cell phone pic of some tasty pigs frying. Overall, it was good. I didn't get enough smoke in it and it was a touch on the sweet side.
I took off work tomorrow to smoke a bunch of pork shoulder all day ... I'll be posting pics and rub recipe tomorrow early ... Stay tuned !
RUB: 1/4 c. Brown sugar 1/4 c black pepper 2Tb chili powder 1/4c fine ground coffee 2Tb salt 2Tb white sugar 1Tb red hot pepper
Excellent...smoking season is just about here along with Amber ales,Ipa's and creamy stouts Amen brother