After getting absolutely shit-canned over asking about turkey bacon (forever known as gay bacon) and having tasted Tristans homemade bacon, I decided to have a crack at making my own on Monday afternoon.
I know we dont all have a fancy 44 gallon drum smoker like Tristan, but I have smoked many items in a basic 4 burner hooded BBQ, so I'll put together a bit of a "how to" for anybody else who is interested in making their own bacon. Wont save you any money, but should taste infintely better!
So I went to my local butcher and picked up 2 x 1kg portions of pork belly: try and purchase an even and reasonably thick piece to make nice slices.
Now you need to cure it - this is where I am currently. I am leaving mine in the fridge for 7 days in a zip lock plastic bag, turning it over daily. Curing rubs can be anything you like, from basic (salt, pink salt, brown sugar) to any number of flavourings like maple syrup, garlic, chili and so fourth.
This is what mine looks like at the moment in the fridge, cured with 1 cup of salt, a teaspoon of prague powder (or pink salt), powdered garlic, smoked paprika, hot chili and canadian maple syrup.
Prague powder or pink salt is quite important to use. Its generally pink to make sure you dont use it like normal salt because it is quite toxic in large quantities. Its purpose is to maintain the pink colour in the meat and it also prevents the build up of bacteria (like botulism) when you smoke it for long periods at low temperature.
Thats it for now until I wash it Monday night, let it air dry (apparently quite important, I'll explain it on Monday when I update) and start smoking it Tuesday afternoon (need to hunt down some applewood and beechwood fingers crossed). Plan is to smoke it for around 2 - 3 hours @ 100C. Hopefully I can catch up with the baconeer himself, get it sliced and critiqued.
Quite different to how Tristan does it, so it will be interesting to see how it compares.