More Bacon

Made another batch of bacon. One sweet and one savory.

Post cure bacon, Savory (left), Sweet (right) Post Smoke Bacon, Savory (bottom), (Sweet top)

Sweet

• 2.12 lbs pork bellie
• 1/4 cup Dry cure (includes sodium nitrite, salt and sugar)
• 2/3s of 1/4 cup Maple sugar
• 2/3s of 1/4 cup of brown sugar (not compressed)

Savory

• 1.71 lbs pork bellie
• 35g Dry Cure (added a table spoon a few days later)
• 2 smashed garlic cloves (size of my pinkie tip)
• 2 crushed bay leaves
• black pepper

Put the bellies in separate Ziploc bags with the listed ingredients and let them cure in the refrigerator for 10 days. They didn’t seem to lose  as much water and get as firm as my first Bacon endeavor. I smoked them for 2 hours at 200-225F using alder wood chips to an internal temperature of 150F. I added less smoke this time around.

The smaller Savory Bacon was very salty, though I had tried a piece from the smaller, thinner side. It was not releasing any water so I thought I had not added enough cure so I had added more. I could also taste the pepper, but not the garlic or the bay. Maybe a different section will have more of those flavors.

The sweet bacon tasted really good, not too sweet. I think for my first sweet bacon I had added too much sugar.

The pork bellie was from Western beef so It might not have been as good as the first pork bellie from Fairway Market.

Skin side – Looks great, like a piece of mahogany wood hand rubbed with Tung oil. I trim off the skin and discard it , but I should be making my own Fried Pork Rinds. This time I left more fat on the bacon when trimming off the skin.

Half Year Post

Summer is here, feels like August. Went to the beach this morning with the dog. The breeze felt great, but the sun was too hot, should have worn a hat, though I’m not a hat guy.

Nelly Moser Clematis – received from a friend, didn’t bloom last year. This is the second bloom this year. I guess it earned its keep. Day lily – Tang Sunburst* (In Memory of Gramps) We have 2 big patches of these. Coreopsis – It wants to take over, but it is easy to pull up the portions you don’t want. We had a pink variety, but it didn’t come back one year. There is a strong variety in white, but I’ve been told it is very boring.Lavender – We also have a pink version, but it looks washed out and not very special.Pink Lavender – I may move it somewhere it might show up better or put it in a planter. Roses – Something Cool Pink*, from the same friend as the Clematis. Sedum – not my favorite family of plants, but serve their purpose of allowing me to skip watering the front garden.Campanula – in a trough    Hydrangea Something from the Mum family, thought it was Chrysanthemum parthenium, but this doesn’t have a yellow center. I think we did at one time have Chrysanthemum parthenium, but no longer. This here I think is a weed, but it grows in a neglected spot and adds some color.Leontopodium alpinum – Edelweiss, it is well established and keeps coming back each year. Maybe I’ll try to divide it this year.  * – more made up plant names