The Great Bacon Project

Ben:
This whole adventure got its start in the great white north. On our honeymoon Kim and I visited a small smokehouse in Victoria where I bought some of their in-house bacon. We didn't have time to eat it there, but brought it back, probably in violation of some kind of customs regulation against cured meats, but I am glad I did, because it was the best! It was thick and smokey wonderful. I took that memory and stored it away without much thought until a fateful dinner at a chili's with the in-laws. I ordered the Smokehouse Bacon Cheeseburger or something, and it had the most incredible bacon on it. It was thick and sweet/smokey and I loved it. After a failed attempt to find another bacon that could compare I decided the only way I could replicate that taste is in my own kitchen. After considerable research I found an acceptable recipe for... maple/brown sugar bacon!!!


So, I had to find some pork belly to cure, which proved a bit trickier than I thought. I ended up buying an entire belly from a meat wholesaler near my house. The thing was over 12 pounds. Cut up it looked like the above pic. I made the cure, which is mostly salt, maple syrup and brown sugar. The salt as a preservative the rest to flavor. It sat for 7 days in my fridge with daily flippings. Those were 7 long days...





After the fridge cure I washed off the cure and dried the bacon on a rack for about a day.

This is me excited that my bacon is almost ready!

The finished product. The sugar in the cure made the edges prone to charring, but the flavor is incredible. Since I had to slice by hand the slices were thick both by choice and necessity. I decided after these first few that smoking the bacon was not really needed, and since my home-made trash can smoker doesn't do so hot in the cold I decided to leave it as is.


Happy that the experiment was a huge success!