So we have a smoker, and every day we slice and present bacon in our full service case. I've just been told I am being put in charge of our bacon, from belly to finished product. I'm having trouble deciding how to track the bellies and keep them in stock. Basically we rub a dry cure on the belly, then let it set for two weeks. Then we smoke it for twelve hours, and cool it overnight before slicing some in the morning. We can smoke 10 at a time. There is room for around 24 bellies curing at any one time. I want to create a spreadsheet in excel to monitor all this, but I can't think of a way to present all the information, and at the same time, NOT rely on all of my co workers to fill out how many they use on a daily basis. I just know that I cannot trust them to remember to write that down every day. Developing a system for this seems easy, but it's giving me a headache!
Help!
-- Edited by Dalthyrian on Wednesday 9th of October 2013 12:05:20 PM
Boning out the bellies. Inject with a brine up to 20% it's own weight. And, then let it soak in the brine for a day of so... Smoke overnight at 180F. Slice.
Same thing with shoulders and hams and loins. Easy.
I might also recommend a simple brine injector. I have used a few different arrangements. One of the simplest to use and easiest to keep clean is a hydraulic sausage stuffer with an injector needle attached to where the casings usually squeeze onto.
I have also used auto-brine injectors with an array of spring loaded needles that would back off when they hit bone, which is pretty handy when brining picnics, shoulders, and hams, and even full loins.... for those nifty smoked chops.
You probably don't need to set up a full excel sheet since this is pretty simple. Your bottleneck is your cure room that will only hold 24 bellies. You can run your line at nearly full capacity by doing lots of 8 bellies. Put 8 bellies in your curing room. Give them a lot number, something like 10283013-A. Set up a Google calander notification telling you to take them out of the cure room 15 days from now (Cure for 15 rather than 14 because it divides by 3). On day 5 add a new lot of 8 bellies to your cure room. On day 10 add another new lot of 8 bellies to your cure room. Make new calander alerts for each of these days so that you or someone will be notified to take them out on the proper day. Now your cure room is at full capacity. On day 15 take out the first lot, and add another 8 bellies. Smoke and chill those first 8 bellies and hope you can sell them all in the next 5 days. If you are overproducing, then start adding fewer bellies. If you are underproducing then you either need a larger cure room, or you can shave off some time on the cure which might affect quality.
This is all assuming that your finished product will hold for 5 days (bacon sure should, if not you are doing something wrong). But if you want to sell fresher product, you could also decrease your lot size and increase your lot frequency.
