OUR FIRST HOME SWEET CURED BACON

 

HOME GROWN CURED HICKORY SMOKED BACON

 

 

REALLY PLEASED OUR FIRST HOME SWEETCURED BACON

 

I have been practising on the local farm shops sides of belly with different cures and saltiness so that I would be ready for actually curing our own raised belly pork to our favourite cure to ensure our own bacon will be just what we want, I found river cottage's cure with a hint of Kristi to be the best.

 

THE BACON SWEETCURE

1 whole belly of pork

(5-10 day cure)

4kg salt

500g soft dark brown sugar

30 juniper berries crushed

50g black pepper corns crushed

6 bay leaves torn

3 tsp salt petre (optional)

 

Take your belly's of pork and thoroughly rub all over with the cure, you will have some cure left over, reserve as you will use this.  In a plastic tub, not metallic place a bed of the salt cure and stack your rubbed bellies on top.  Cover and place in the fridge for 5-10 days.  If you want to cure your bacon and use it immediately and keep for approx a month fresh or so then 5 days is perfect, the longer you cure the bacon the longer the bacon will keep, but it will be a lot more salty, therefore you will need to soak the bacon for a few hours just to lessen the saltiness before slicing.