Did Some Canadian Bacon Today


 
BHasselback said:
Cured for 5 days, then left to dry overnight. Been about 4 hours at 200ish...a few minutes away from 145. Got a nice color to it. It's about 5lbs give or take. Any ideas on storage? Was thinking slicing thin into 1/2lb or so portions, then freezing? Is it better to have parchment paper between the slices?

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I slice, vacuum seal in 1/2 lb. packages and freeze. No need for parchment. You're usually going to thaw before frying anyways.
 
I slice by hand, shooting for about 1/8" thick slices. I usually put eight or ten slices shingled in a Ziploc sandwich bag and then put two of those in a quart size vacuum bag. (My vacuum bags are re-usable and are easier to clean if the inner portion is protected from direct contact with the contents.) My goal is to have roughly a week's worth of slices in each Ziploc.

I like the way you tied it up. I didn't do that last time and ended up with slices that are far more oblong than circular. Tastes the same but not as aesthetically pleasing.

Did you add flavorings to the cure? My last batch I just used sage because I had a ton of it in the garden.
 
I used a pretty simple recipe I found online since this was my first try. Curing salt, regular salt, peppercorns, garlic, maple syrup, brown sugar and some bay leaves. I like the flavor...next time maybe I'll go a little more adventurous. Sliced it by hand (still need one of them fancy meat slicers!). This was actually pretty easy to slice nice and thin...used one of those 14" knives so it was pretty much one stroke and done. I'll consider it a success for the 1st time out. Thanks for the bagging ideas.
 
Sounds like a decent combination to me, as long as I'm not the one trying to figure the sugar percent for maple syrup.

A good slicing knife definitely makes it easier to cut even slices. I've put a manual jerky slicer on my Christmas list this year. I figure that will work for getting even slices of Canadian bacon too.
 
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Don't be intimidated. It's actually a lot easier and forgiving than you might think given some of the detailed instructions. Get the regular salt and the pink salt right and you can pretty much do whatever you want with the rest of it. The other critical thing is being sure the cure has worked its way all the way through, but you can err on the high side there with no damage at all. As long as you're not in a hurry it should go fine.
 
JayHeyl said:
Don't be intimidated. It's actually a lot easier and forgiving than you might think given some of the detailed instructions. Get the regular salt and the pink salt right and you can pretty much do whatever you want with the rest of it. The other critical thing is being sure the cure has worked its way all the way through, but you can err on the high side there with no damage at all. As long as you're not in a hurry it should go fine.
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Yeah, 5 days sounded a little short on time to me. But it is tied up so they might have split it open for curing and rolled it back up. Typically leave about a 1.25 in slab of bacon in there for a week, but it has layers of fat so it's not quite as effective as leaner meat. I've cured jerky and a quarter inch thick strips takes only a few
minutes and you can see the color change throughout.
 
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