Good bacon recipies

[trogdor]

I've tried a couple of different bacon curing recipes and prefer savory to sweet.
The interwebs have lots of recipes to choose from - what are your tried and true ones?
Show me your best bacon! :dr

[Chainsaw13]

I usually do just a simple salt/sugar cure myself. 2% salt (1.75% salt, 0.25% cure #1) and 2% sugar to weight of meat. Cover meat and let equilibrium cure for a week. Then smoke.

But for savory, try lessening the sugar (still want some to balance the salt) and add items like Chinese five spice powder, say 0.5% to start. Or used Korean hot chili flakes instead of the five spice.

Another good one is coffee/bourbon. Or garlic and fennel seed.

Another is black pepper, juniper berries and thyme.

[Chainsaw13]

A friend of mine, his recipe for German bacon. https://honest-food.net/german-bacon-recipe/

[trogdor]

Thanks for the suggestions!
Coffee and bourbon together? About how much coffee grounds? Does the bourbon make it more of a wet cure, or are we only talking a few oz per slab??

[Chainsaw13]

Again I'd start light with weight to percentage of meat. That way you can easily adjust on the next batch either up or down. Start with 0.5%. So for 1000g of belly, 50 grams of grounds. Bourbon will make it a wet rub, so increase the percentages a bit to compensate. I'd start with a half cup per kilo. Weigh if you can just for future reference.

That's the cool thing about eq curing, it'll never get too salty as there's only 2% salt in the cure.

[Chainsaw13]

If you're on FB, look for the group, The Salt Cured Pig. Lots of recipes there if you use the search function. Although FB searching blows. ��

[trogdor]

Awesome, thanks! I've got some stuff to try now

[Chainsaw13]

Sounds good. The thing with each curing is giving it enough time to penetrate all the way through. 7-10 days should be plenty.

[icehog3]

Single white male seeking petite brunette or redhead fully draped in cooked bacon.

Am I in the wrong place? :)