bacon

[Ognen]

Hi all, well the pig killing went well (thanks stonehead for your help) and we have a freezer full of pork now. One problem.....I made what I thought was bacon....... Well I got the right bit of the pig rubbed in a mixture of salt and sugar to cure it and kept it for about 6 days redoing the cure every couple of days and draining off the old brine. Well I now have a lot of very salty pork!!! It doesn't taste anything like bacon and it looks just like pork! I read both John (the bible) Seymour and Hugh eat-it-all and it seems that I did all I should have, so what is wrong with it? and more to the point what do I do with 5kgms of very salty pork?? Please help.

[Thomzo]

Well it should keep well. When you want to use it just soak it in water overnight and change the water regularly (oh perhaps don't do it overnight if you have to change the water regularly - perhaps soak it for the day before).

Zoe

[paddy]

Perhaps you should have used Saltpetre ?????

2 litres of cold water
10 grammes saltpetre
500 grammes salt
500 grammes brown sugar
10 grammes of spice mix....juniper..blackpepper..thyme

leave meat soaking fully immersed for 10 days...thicker pieces longer

got it off a packet of saltpetre

[paddy]

Just noticed you dont have a regular internet connection so if you get stuck for saltpetre just PM me and i will give you details there as this company does mail order.

[farmerdrea]

I had always thought the key to that lovely bacon-y flavour was in the smoking? We've done a few pigs ourselves so far, use a dry cure mixture salt, pepper, paprika, brown sugar and molasses, cure for a couple of weeks, draining the moisture out regularly, and then smoke/rest over 6 days (smoke a day, rest a day). It is a bit saltier, but we just soak it to remove that overpowering salty taste.

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[Ognen]

Hi
According to Hugh eat-it-all the saltpetre is optional as it is put in to preserve the colour of food and to be honest I don't care what colour it is!!

Thank you Paddy forthe recipe I will try it next time

I couldn't smoke it as the temp is late 30s low 40s here at the moment and we would probably die if we lit the petchka to smoke our meat!!
I have had unsmoked bacon before and this stuff I have mutated tastes nothing like that.

I tried soaking it and it was slightly less salty thank you. Iwill need to leave it for a couple of days I believe. I was really wanting a bacon butty. You can't get proper bacon here and I havewithdrawal symptoms!! I will have to keep it for thewinter and put it in a casserole with beans.

[Clara]

I was really wanting a bacon butty. You can't get proper bacon here and I havewithdrawal symptoms!!

Yep know that feeling, even though the local butcher only sells pork!

So do we know how to make regular bacon now? I read Hugh Fluffy-Wollyshawl´s article and it sounded like it made pancetta. I want fry-up bacon!

[Thurston Garden]

Saltpetre only serves to retain the colour in the meat and as HFW says, is optional.

I think the problem with your salty bacon is the modern palette. The sh*te that is mass produces here (not sure about with you!) is tasteless pap, with ADDED flavourings, mostly beef extract.....

Our bacon was made by local butcher http://www.borderbutcher.co.uk/ using his grandfathers recipe. It can be salty - it depends on where on the flake of meat the slices were, those on the outside can be saltier than the ones in the middle. I like my bacon salty!

When my Dad had our bacon (our first go at home dry cured streaky, exactly as you did yours) he just smiled and said all he could picture was his Dad taking the flake of belly pork from the hook in the kitchen ceiling, taking it out of it's pillowcase and cutting off slices. I also paid our octogenarian blacksmith with some of our back bacon after he put a new blade on my scythe. When I spoke to him a few days later and asked how the bacon was, his eyes warmed and a big grin broke over his face.. "my, that bacon was guid!" It makes me smile now just thinking of the look on his face!

http://thurstongarden.wordpress.com/200 ... nd-gammon/

Salt in today's diet is not PC, so if it's too salty, just soak it in water for a while. Otherwise, tuck in!

[Thurston Garden]

Perhaps you should have used Saltpetre ?????

2 litres of cold water
10 grammes saltpetre
500 grammes salt
500 grammes brown sugar
10 grammes of spice mix....juniper..blackpepper..thyme

leave meat soaking fully immersed for 10 days...thicker pieces longer

got it off a packet of saltpetre

That looks like a recipe for a wet cure (brine) Ognen, I think was making streaky bacon from the belly using a dry cure.

[Thurston Garden]

Oh, just remembered, the HFW Boston Bean recipe in his Meat Book is supoib..... good way to use your 5kg up!

[paddy]

As regards saltpetre and bacon............as far as i know saltpetre was always used for bacon untill fairly recently for a number of reasons........i did read that some one claimed it could be linked to a health scare even though it had been used for hundreds of years and also it had other uses which it still is and can be used today and we stop there !!! because it became hard to get hold of, and i had a hell of a game trying to find it on the net, and infact found it by accident when it was listed on a forum.

Bacon or Salted Pork????? Well in the days before fridges i think any pork that wasnt eaten fresh was salted or turned into ham or bacon but where the line is drawn if saltpetre and it's modern day equivelent isnt used perhaps someone could enlighten????

[Jack]

Gidday

If I remember this the right way around, salt petre is potasium nitrate but is often substituted for by sodium nitrate, which is not as good for you.

The health scare I heard about was when someone had put salt petre in a batch of meat but had missed the decimal point out so had dosed it with ten times the recommended and made some one sick, so all over the world they tried to barr the use of something that cause the ilness.

Salt petre is used to help keep the colour as well as help with the preserving of the meat.

When I was a boy, we had no refrigeration cos of no power and wouild eat a sheep a week so that it didn;'t have time to go off too much, and the pigs were all cured except for the first roast as pork is too dangerous to keep without refridgeration.

We had a shed, with an old bath in it and the pigs were cured in the bath then a fire was lit in the shed which had no choimney in so that was how it was smoked.

However my grandparent's place was much older, like a corrigated iron shed, dirt floor and very large corrigated iron fireplace at one end of the building. T cured meat was always just hung up inside of the chimney and sometimes stayed there until it was all eaten.

Those were the days when grocery list were just, bag of flour, bag of sugar and bag of salt and everything else had to be grown.

[Ognen]

I think the problem with your salty bacon is the modern palette. The sh*te that is mass produces here (not sure about with you!) is tasteless pap, with ADDED flavourings, mostly beef extract.....

Salt in today's diet is not PC, so if it's too salty, just soak it in water for a while. Otherwise, tuck in!

the thing is it isn't bacon, it's salty pork nothing like bacon. it's as if i got a lump of pork covered it in salt and tried to eat it straight away!

Thanks one and all for the input, there are obviously experts out there! Next pig I kill, can you come over and make me bacon??????????!!!!!!!!

[Thurston Garden]

Was it belly flakes you salted?

[mybarnconversion]

In terms of its saltyness could you use it as a positive ... use it as the basis for cooked dishes in the same way as we often use bacon fat, lardons or pancetta -- it can provide flavour, salt and fat ...