Last night was the culmination of seven days of curing a full slab of pork belly!

I started with a big, I mean big like around two foot by three foot, frozen pork belly. thawed it in the fridge overnight.

The next day I mixed up a batch of curing rub from kosher salt, brown sugar, and maple syrup. I cut the slab into two pieces and then applied the rub. Top, bottom, sides, just all over it.

Then each slab went into a two gallon ziploc bag. Then into the fridge for a week! Flipping each slab over once a day so that the brine that forms will coat the entire slab.

After seven days the meat is cured, you can cut it and fry it if you want but I smoked it instead! About an hour and a half in the BGE with hickory chips. I wanted to use maple chips instead but couldn't find any in town:-)

This bacon is very rich. It would make for excellent BLT sandwiches instead of breakfast bacon. It's meaty and sweet. Very cool flavor and much different than store bought bacon.
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That is an interesting undertaking, sounds good.:-)
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Love me some bacon
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Interesting. Sounds awesome! I'll stick with turkey bacon though :-)
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Wow, Andy. Sounds incredible!!!
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I hate to say it.. but we need pics.


Like "bacon" doesn't already make me Pavlovs dog, I thought I would just get a bigger towel.
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Most excellent. I've got two belly slabs, about 26lbs, in my freezer just waiting to be thawed, cured and smoked. Just waiting for a time when I know I'll be home long enough to go through the process. I've used maple syrup in the past but the flavor never seems to come through.

Here's a pic from the last batch.
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Raisin (Mike) makes bacon like this, and fed an army at one of the Shack Herfs.....made the best BLTs I have had before or since. :-)
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I have just got to give this a try but not sure where I could get the frozen belly slabs around here.:-)
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Raw, uncured pork belly.
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After rubbing the curing mixture on the bacon and placing in the two gallon ziploc bags. That should give you an idea of how big the slabs are.
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I'd start with any butcher shop. Grocery stores really don't carry a cut of meat like that.
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Sounds delish!! :-)
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If I did that, i'd be eating bacon every day. It's like crack to me. heh heh.

Way to go, that bacon looks excellent!
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Yep, that's the best bet. They should be able to special order it for you. I've found a local farmer that raises hormone/antibiotic free pigs and get mine from him.

blugill, post how they came out.
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:-) :-)
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Oh my, that looks amazing! :-)
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mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm bacon..... Nicely done, thanks for sharing!
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Andy??? What the Heck's the matter with you????!!!!???!??

Don't you know I'm trying to lose weight? Ain't gonna happen with you posting threads like this.

Darn. Now I gotta go find me some bacon fat to eat!
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Pictures as requested:-)
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Kosher salt on pork hahaha very ironic
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