After 10 days applying the cure I left it in the bottom of the fridge for 10 more days.

I started off with 4.4 Lb (2kg) and ended up with 3.5 Lb (1.6kg) of bacon this includes the weight of the bones.

Here are the pictures of the finished bacon.

The dark piece behind the knives is the colour of the end piece. I cut 4 slices of thick rashers and 2 bacon chops.

irishdude wrote:

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I'm making some bacon, which is yummy for the tummy.

 

http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/dry-cured-streaky-bacon/

This is the original method for belly pork but I'm curing a bone in loin so the curing time is doubled to 10 days and the drying time is doubled also.

Hence ive doubled the amounts for the cure.

Ingredients

A  2Kg (4.4 lb) piece of bone in pork loin ( the chine is cut off exposing the buttons so the cure can penetrate as the chine blocks it, and the bones are left in so there is no troughs or holes for the cure to collect in)

(The cure)

1kg (2.2 lb) of non iodinised salt.( the link says PDV salt which i think is a packaging term)

1kg (2.2 lb) of light brown sugar.

(The aromatics.)

A few bay leaves ( I used dried fresh is fine).

50g (1.75 oz) ground mixed peppercorns.

25 crushed juniper berries.

 

The instructions are in the link so I'll upload some photos.

Two views of the pork and one of the cure. I,m doing this in the bottom of the fridge in a food grade container $10 from Acemart.

The pork,salt and sugar was $25 from whole foods I didnt want meat with added water plus i got 20% discount.

 

I'll upload a few pictures in a few weeks of the finished process and a few pics of it cooked and cut as a bacon chop.

 

-- Edited by irishdude on Saturday 22nd of February 2014 02:54:37 AM

-- Edited by irishdude on Saturday 22nd of February 2014 02:55:12 AM

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 Thanks for the information and the photos. I would like to try that but tell me Dude, how will you prepare this finish product? Would you fry it like bacon or what. My family loves bacon and we buy the peppered bacon thick cut and of course it is processed with preservatives . My son in law who lives about a football field from me likes to experiment with different meat types. We had some jerky venison tonight and it came out pretty good except I  would have dried it in an oven (or on the oven door) rather than a hydrator. The dehydrator dried it out to much and it was difficult to chew.

Tell me more about this cured product.

We also make lonza, (capicola) a dried salami type lunch meat. We start with fresh pork butt (or shoulder) and removing the heart of it and square it off we dry it with salt  only. Once the salt works its way through the butt the pan underneath will be filled with juices. We discard that juice. We then pepper it up real good and wrap it up in a brown paper back and tie it like you would a rump roast and then hang it. It needs to dry for about 3 months and the temperature can't be below freezing or above 60 with lots of ventilation. It is a real challenge down here in the south when we only get two months of winter so we have to use our refrigerator. But it still comes out great. You slice it thin on good Italian bread sprinkled with good olive oil and you would think you died and went to heaven. A good glass of red chianti wine works well with it.