Bacon: Do you use pink curing salt?


 
John Neuser

John Neuser

TVWBB Fan
Last week I smoked a pork belly for bacon. It was the first time I've tried and, if I must say, it turned out great. Try as I might, I could not find pink curing salt to be included in the dry brine rub. So I used equal parts brown sugar, kosher salt and pepper. Applied to all sides of the belly. Refrigerated for a week, drained and turned daily and applied more rub only where necessary. While I don't want to mess with success do you think the bacon would be better with a little of the pink salt? I know it helps keep the meat pink but does it impart or enhance the flavor? Haven't finished the first one yet but while I was at Costco yesterday I picked up another belly. This one is 11.5#s. Thanks for reading.
 
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Pink salt is also known as Prague powder or instacure #1. It is used to help color and prevent botulism in meats that will be slow cooked.
I get mine from Amazon.

I have made a lot of smoked sausage and bacon in my day and have always used it for food safety reasons First and color enhancement 2nd.
 
I think it's necessary and that it's what makes bacon bacon. You'll find people out there that will argue tooth and nail against curing salt. I think they are wrong.

There's two ways to go about it. Using Morton's Tenderquick is the easiest way. It's a mixture of salt, sugar, sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate. The other route is to use "pink curing salt" or cure #1 which is a mixture of salt and sodium nitrite.

Sodium nitrite is a poison in high doses so it needs to be used with care and caution. Tenderquick has so much salt that if you applied too much of it, the food would be far to salty to eat. Cure #1 is mostly salt, but it has a higher percentage of sodium nitrite so you need to be more careful with it. 1 teaspoon will cure about 5 pounds of meat. In my bacon I use 0.25% cure by weight of the meat I'm curing. I measure in grams to make the calculations easier.

11.5 pounds is 5216.3 grams. 0.25% of 5216.3 grams is 13 grams of cure #1. What's that in teaspoons? I have no idea because it depends on the size of the granules of the cure#1 and the density. Weight is always a far superior way to measure these things.

Finally, you cannot substitute cure#1 for Tenderquick or vice versa in a recipe.
 
Bob's method:

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Bacon made easy

Update from Bob & Chris: 10/5/2019 It was recently brought to our attention by a TVWBB member that the Morton salt website says the following about Tender Quick: "We cannot recommend Morton Tender Quick for use with pork belly or bacon. Due to the differing fat content of individual cuts, the...
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I would use this method if you have any doubts about messing with cure#1. It's fantastic.
 
I do use sodium nitrite.
Ours comes in an 8% formulation. Luckily I calculate everything in metric, so it's pretty straight forward to adjust amounts.
Nitrite is what it makes it bacon, whether it comes from celery, sodium nitrite, nitrate or whatever.
I generally cold smoke my bacon, and also like the extra safety
 
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Bought a pork belly for bacon.. need some help

I headed down to my local carneceria and found a 6 pound belly with skin on. It's still in the fridge right now, but I will be prepping it tonight. I plan on a maple cure, so I bought some good quality syrup today. I went to no less than six stores looking for Tender Quick, or some sort of...
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Edit: My internets been down and couldn't finish my text.
Seems lately uncured bacon, sausage, peperoni are the new "thing" in food.
If you read the link you'll see that back in 08 some members didn't use it.
 
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timothy said:
Edit: My internets been down and couldn't finish my text.
Seems lately uncured bacon, sausage, peperoni are the new "thing" in food.
If you read the link you'll see that back in 08 some members didn't use it.
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The 'uncured' label you see in the supermarkets just means that they haven't used the direct sodium nitrite (or is is nitrate?) in their cure, but if you look closely at the ingredients it will include celery, which is naturally occurring nitrates. Still 'cured', but with natural nitrates instead of concentrated.
 
Tracy Seelhammer said:
The 'uncured' label you see in the supermarkets just means that they haven't used the direct sodium nitrite (or is is nitrate?) in their cure, but if you look closely at the ingredients it will include celery, which is naturally occurring nitrates. Still 'cured', but with natural nitrates instead of concentrated.
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Yea I understand that , but you can cure with just salt and smoke.
Similar to how our ancestors did it.
 
I tried this recipe/method & love it! Will burn easily from sugar content.

kentrollins.com

Home Cured Bacon - Kent Rollins

Folks, today we are going to show you how to make your own bacon at home, its going to save you time, money and best part is: No Artificial Ingredients.…
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John Neuser said:
Last week I smoked a pork belly for bacon. It was the first time I've tried and, if I must say, it turned out great. Try as I might, I could not find pink curing salt to be included in the dry brine rub. So I used equal parts brown sugar, kosher salt and pepper. Applied to all sides of the belly. Refrigerated for a week, drained and turned daily and applied more rub only where necessary. While I don't want to mess with success do you think the bacon would be better with a little of the pink salt? I know it helps keep the meat pink but does it impart or enhance the flavor? Haven't finished the first one yet but while I was at Costco yesterday I picked up another belly. This one is 11.5#s. Thanks for reading.
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You've inspired me to try something new. I bought a 9.4 pound pork belly at Costco this weekend, will get it dusted and in the fridge later this week (gotta clear some leftovers first.) Tally Ho!
 
Mike Shook said:
You've inspired me to try something new. I bought a 9.4 pound pork belly at Costco this weekend, will get it dusted and in the fridge later this week (gotta clear some leftovers first.) Tally Ho!
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Good luck Mike. As mentioned above, I did not use curing salt. Still turned out GREAT. Had some on BLTs yesterday when son and daughter in law were visiting. Got rave reviews. I'll bet yours will turn out equally good. Just remember to cook well.
 
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