Thursday, December 9, 2010

How to Make Bacon

Bacon is one of the best tasting things on Earth, yet its identity is shrouded in mystery. What is bacon? How is it made? How long does it take? Can you make it at home?

Yes, you can indeed. Here is the basic process:
  1. Get a pig belly
  2. Apply a dry cure for at least a week
  3. Rinse off salt
  4. Hang to dry for a day or two
  5. Cold smoke ~12 hours
  6. Slice, fry, eat
As you can see, bacon is indeed labor intensive, requiring at least 10 days to make. But homemade bacon has several advantages over store-bought bacon:
  1. No nitrites. Commercial bacon is cured with 'pink salt' which preserves color and helps protect against botulism, but also has been implicated as a potential carcinogen. Unless you are eating your bacon raw, botulism is not really a concern here as the toxin is destroyed during cooking. According to the World Health Organization, 5 minutes at 185 F destroys botulinum toxin, conditions easily achieved during pan-frying.
  2. Will keep very well and for a long time
  3. Can cut into any shape and thickness desired (great for soups and chilis - can cut into large cubes or strips which maintain their texture far better than sliced bacon)
  4. Superior flavor and 'cookability'. Commercial bacon is typically injected with cure then injected with water to increase weight. With homemade bacon, being dry-cured then hung to dry, the bacon comes out far less 'flabby' and doesn't spatter nearly as much in the pan since the water content is so low.
  5. Cheaper than commercial bacon.
  6. Impress your friends.
Step 1: Get a pig belly

Pig bellies can be found at most self-respecting butchers. At the very least they can order you some. I would recommend doing a big slab (maybe 10 lbs at a time or more) because making lots of bacon is the same amount of work as making a little. Also, it keeps forever and makes a great gift. Sometimes pig bellies are also called "rib-sides" - these are actually from the tips of the ribs to the nipple-line, and I've found they aren't quite as fatty (and therefore not as good for bacon) as the center of the belly. What we are looking for in bacon is the abdominal oblique muscles surrounded by fat.

Some bellies will still have the skin: whether you want to leave this on or trim it off is a matter of preference. I prefer to trim it because a) the cure and smoke will penetrate better, and b) it can burn and get hard when you fry it.


Step 2: Dry cure

The goal of the cure is to draw water out of the meat and to preserve it by introducing salt. Most bacteria don't have a chance in such a salty environment. I like a ratio of 2:1 salt to sugar. For a 10 lb slab, 2 cups kosher salt and 1 cup brown sugar is plenty (in fact, perhaps overkill- you might try 1.5 cups salt to 0.75 cups sugar). Too much sugar and the outside could burn when you cook it. Pack the belly in the cure and stick it in the fridge. It will give off lots of liquid in the first couple days. Ideally you should keep the belly above this liquid, but I've left it submerged in the liquid for 2 weeks with no ill-effects.

As for curing times, I'd recommend at the very least 1 week, ideally two weeks. I've cooked up samples at only 4 days in the cure, and they still act like regular pork at this stage. By two weeks, the meat is thoroughly salted the texture has changed to a firm, dense, ham-like consistency.


Step 3: Rinse salt

I like to 'freshen' the bacon. This will pull out some salt that has penetrated the meat. This sort of step is typical in the production of lox - you want to cure the fish but don't want it to be overly salty. You will want to soak the bacon in a few changes of fresh, cool water - I'd recommend at least a couple hours. If you don't freshen enough and your bacon is too salty, it can still be rectified immediately prior to cooking by soaking the slices for about 30 minutes in fresh water, so don't worry if your bacon comes out too salty.

Step 4: Hang

This is where you allow the outside to dry and form a pellicle. This is an important step that really helps develop the texture of the meat and helps during the cold-smoking process. Smoke doesn't 'stick' to wet surfaces very well so you need to dry your bacon. Hang the freshened meat somewhere with low humidity. A fridge is perfect if you have the space. In a fridge it will take about 24 hours. You could also do it in a basement or something and aim a fan at it and do it for a little less time. Basically you want the outside to be tacky to the touch so the smoke will penetrate the meat.


Step 5: Cold smoke

Cold smoking is a process where you apply smoke to a food but no heat. This maintains the texture of the meat, and, more importantly, you can apply smoke for a much longer amount of time than hot-smoking. In hot smoking (which is basically barbecue) you cook and smoke simultaneously. I can cold-smoke a bacon for 12 hours (or longer), but if I were to hot-smoke for that long I would have rendered most of the fat and burned most of the meat.


Making a cold smoker is easy and cheap. You will need a cardboard box, a soldering iron, a tin can, and some wood chips. Below is a photo of my cold-smoking rig. Basically you just want to fill the can with some wood chips, stick in the soldering iron, and put this in the box along with your meat. The soldering iron will smolder the wood slowly but produce almost no heat. Also, because of the very limited oxygen in the can, the wood will not flame up and burn (which would also create heat and bitter smoke). In general my smoker will run about 10 degrees F above ambient, so ideally you would do this when it is cool outside.

Hang the bacon in the cardboard box, and let it smoke for about 10-12 hours. Big fatty slabs of pork can take this level of smoke-abuse. You will need to give the can a shake every hour or so, and every couple hours you might need to change out the wood chips. My favorite wood for bacon is hickory, but feel free to experiment with other woods (oak, applewood, pecan, etc. should all be good choices). I strongly recommend you soak the wood chips in water prior to use: this will tame the harshness of the smoke and create a slow smolder. If you smoke with dry wood chips, the smoke will be harsh and sting your eyes - not what you want on your food.


Step 6: Eating

Now that your bacon is cured and cold-smoked, it is ready for frying and eating. Slice it however you like- I find it is easier to make thin slices if the bacon is partly frozen first.


Anyways, that's it. Now you have 10 lbs of slab bacon that you can cut however you want. Large cubes are fantastic in soups, beans, pasta, chili, etc.