Fantastic smoke ring
The Thin Blue Smoke Thread VII- BBQ at the B&B 2015
- Thread starter Jim
- Start date
Everything looks so delicious.
Bacon day today! 5 lbs of regular, brined for two weeks with 2.5% salt, 2% sugar and cure #1. AND! 6 lbs of spicy garlic, brined for two weeks with 2.5% salt, 2% sugar, cure #1, 5 tbsp garlic, 1 tbs red chili flake and about 30 small hot chilies (diced).
In the smoker for 13 hours. Ten hours on smoke (oak) and 3 hours off (in between doses of smoke). 4 hours at 100 F, 4 hours at 140F and 5 hours at 165 F to 145 IT for half an hour, more than enough to pasteurize according to the FDA.
Finished product:
IMG_3934.JPG by cxg231, on Flickr
IMG_3935.JPG by cxg231, on Flickr
In the smoker for 13 hours. Ten hours on smoke (oak) and 3 hours off (in between doses of smoke). 4 hours at 100 F, 4 hours at 140F and 5 hours at 165 F to 145 IT for half an hour, more than enough to pasteurize according to the FDA.
Finished product:
IMG_3934.JPG by cxg231, on Flickr
IMG_3935.JPG by cxg231, on Flickr
I'll bring the bread, tomatoes, and lettuce.
Man on man, that is a good looking hunk of meat. Bacon is on my list of items to do this year, maybe in the spring and the food saver it it into family sized servings
Beef Short ribs, peapods and rice the other night when we had my folks over for supper. They are butcher marinated and house made locally and oh so good.
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Beef Short ribs, peapods and rice the other night when we had my folks over for supper. They are butcher marinated and house made locally and oh so good.
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Wow that bacon looks sooo good!
you guys are killing it!
you guys are killing it!
That slaw looks fantastic Bruce. I never thought about a jalapeño slaw.
If the slaw was uncooked, it would make a killer ceviche with shrimp or scallops!
We needed a side, so I grabbed whatever we had in the fridge. My first thought was "Sweet & Spicy" and it turned out exactly that.
I thought about that, but the pineapple had been in the fridge a little too long and was starting to get soft anyway. So hitting the cast iron made me forget that.
Bacon day today! 5 lbs of regular, brined for two weeks with 2.5% salt, 2% sugar and cure #1. AND! 6 lbs of spicy garlic, brined for two weeks with 2.5% salt, 2% sugar, cure #1, 5 tbsp garlic, 1 tbs red chili flake and about 30 small hot chilies (diced).
In the smoker for 13 hours. Ten hours on smoke (oak) and 3 hours off (in between doses of smoke). 4 hours at 100 F, 4 hours at 140F and 5 hours at 165 F to 145 IT for half an hour, more than enough to pasteurize according to the FDA.
Finished product:
Good looking bacon, thanks for adding the proportions you used. I have been using a dry brine for my bacon, but next go around my plan is to wet brine.
Come on over! Plenty to go around.
Bruce - you really must do you own bacon, preferably as soon as possible! All you need is time, which we all have in abundant supply, right?
I never want to go back to store bought bacon. And I do exactly what you plan to do, slice into individual servings and vacuum pack. You probably know this already, but if you are hand slicing, pop the bacon into the freezer for ~1.5 hours before hand to "par freeze" it. This is the only way to get decent slices by hand in my experience, even with a very sharp knife.
Thank you!
No problem, glad to help. I've never tried a dry brine myself, the math seems easier to me with a wet brine.
2.5% salt (by weight of brine) seems to be a good balance between meaty salty goodness - "bacon flavor" and "too salty", as in, I haven't had anyone complain that there is too much salt. Some people have suggested I could go saltier, but I prefer not to.
For the cure #1, maximum cure per the FDA is 200 PPM, and minimum cure in the meat should be around 100 PPM (50 PPM for just color). While the meat is curing the brine and the meat come into equilibrium with the amount of salt and sugar and cure. So we need to know how how much meat and how much brine we start off with by weight to calculate the amount of cure #1 required.
So, in my case, I started with 5125 g of pork belly and I was going to use 3000 g of brine (3 liters), for a total of 8125g. Doing the math to achieve a final cure concentration of 100 PPM in the meat and knowing that cure #1 is 6.25% nitrite, we can calculate how much cure #1 we need.
[(100 PPM / 1,000,000) / 0.0625] * 8125 g = 13 g of cure #1
The FDA curing handbook discusses "immersion curing", starting on page 21 of the PDF linked below.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISDirectives/7620-3.pdf
I do my salt by weight of brine, so 2.5% salt x 3000g brine = 75g salt - 13g cure (cure is mostly salt) = 62g of salt. Typing all this out I realize that doing my salt by weight of brine makes zero sense, since the meat and brine come into salt equilibrium during the curing process. What I actually ended up with was (75g salt / 8125g meat and brine) = 0.9% salt. I'll make it easy and do 1% next time. Sorry for the confusion.
The pic below is of cure #2, I added it accidentally and can't delete it for some reason...
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Some double cheese, fried pepper salami, sourdough Grilled Cheese with garlic spread from the other night.
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Very nice
Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Can I come live with you guys? I'll bring bacon!
I felt like a short order cook today, making burgers and spiral cut dogs for 8 at our sons birthday in -25 weather.
Cheese, no cheese, burger & dog, two dogs, two burgers...I even had a list as they kept changing their minds and adding to their order after the food was off the grill.
Cheese, no cheese, burger & dog, two dogs, two burgers...I even had a list as they kept changing their minds and adding to their order after the food was off the grill.
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That's great. Good show.
Great pics everyone 
Makes me feel a bit better, no 'que for a while as total fire bans here at the moment (105F)
Makes me feel a bit better, no 'que for a while as total fire bans here at the moment (105F)
That bacon looks fantastic. I'm glad more people are using percentages now; they give much more consistent results. I usually use a dry cure of 3% salt, 1% sugar and 0.25% cure #1 by weight of the meat
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