Sunday, January 17, 2010

WAITING ON THE CURE

It has begun! My 2.5 pound black hog belly was fully defrosted on Friday night, so I started the curing process. Here is a picture of the belly before I did anything to it. It is 2" thick, and looks gorgeous. There are a couple rib bones you can see in the back of the picture, but they are small, and I will remove them before I slice the bacon...I haven't decided on the right time yet...

And this is the pork belly, coated in a mixture of equal parts salt and sugar. I heavily coated the meat, then threw a little extra in the bag for good measure.

The pork will sit in its cure for 7 days. I'm flipping it over every day and making sure that the liquid forming in the bag stays in contact with the meat. Next Friday, I'll put the uncovered, rinsed meat on a wire rack in the fridge overnight to form a "pellicle", or sticky coating which will help smoke adhere to the meat. On Saturday morning, I'll fire up the smoker, fulfilling this pork belly's ultimate destiny....

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