Preparation Time: 1 week to cure / Cooking Time: 1-2 hours / Makes 2kg of bacon
Ingredients
- 130g brown sugar
- 130g sea salt
- 2kg pork belly, cut into 2 x 1kg slabs
Flavour Suggestions
Coffee/Maple Rub:
- 40g ground coffee
- 5g coarsely ground pepper
- 70g maple syrup
Spice Rub:
- 10g spice rub. One of my favourites is African Volcano’s Medium Strength Peri-Peri Rub
Method
- Mix together the brown sugar and salt.
- Pour half of each mixer into two large plastic zip lock bags.
- Place 1kg of pork belly in each bag.
- Add your flavour combination of choice into each bag. On this occasion I made one batch with coffee/maple and one batch with spice rub.
- Massage the pork belly with the spice rub.
- Remove all air from the bags and seal them.
- Place the pork belly in the fridge. Once a day for 7 days, the pork belly must be turned so that both sides of the meat have time to bath in the curing liquid released by the pork.
- After the curing process has been completed. Thoroughly wash the pork belly to remove excess salt.
- Pat dry the pork belly.
- Preheat your oven to 100°C fan forced.
- Place the pork in a baking tray, skin side up, and bake between 1-1.5 hours. The bacon is ready once you can place a thermometer into the thickest portion of the bacon and the temperature is around 70° C.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature or continue to the optional smoking process below.
- Cut into thick pieces and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
- Use in any of your favourite recipes or eat it simply pan fried in the same way you’d pan fry any other bacon.
Optional Smoking Step:
- Mid way through baking the pork, heat up about 20 pieces of charcoal.
- Soak a handful of apple wood or hickory wood in water.
- Place the charcoal in the base of your BBQ.
- Once the pork has reached 70°C, add the wood without the water directly onto the charcoal.
- Place the pork above the charcoal and close the lid.
- Smoke for 5-6 minutes.
Notes
The pork belly must reach at least 65° C to kill any bacteria and be safe for consumption. It is really important that the internal temperature of the meat is accurately checked. You can cook the pork belly on a BBQ or smoker for the entire process if you are able to regulate the temperature. Lastly, I do not use a nitrate based curing agent. from the research I have found that a straight salt/sugar mix is still a good way of preserving the meat however the importance of achieving the correct temperatures can not be stressed enough.