Operation: Making Bacon

I've been reading about curing bacon this past week. It's a simple process that takes about a week to complete. Very easy though. Since you aren't using sodium nitrate it is also healthier....well as far as bacon is healthy anyway.

You use kosher salt, brown sugar, and the seasonings you want like maple syrup or peppercorns or BBQ spices or whatever. Commercial bacon is usually wet cured, homemade bacon is dry cured and then smoked until the internal temperature of the meat reaches one hundred fifty degrees. Not enough to cook the meat, just enough to smoke it good and impart the flavor you want.

You can also cold smoke bacon which is something I'd rather do since it is still Winter out. You take a soldering iron, a tin can, and wood chips. The way you MacGyver this all together is by poking holes in the can's side and partially cut the end of the can with a can opener. You put the wood chips into the end of the can until it is full, place the soldering iron in with the chips, place the whole thing into your smoker, and plug it in. In a couple of hours you have smoked food!

This works best with cheeses and soft foods that will melt if you used heat.

So now my task lies ahead, I'm on a quest for a pork belly!