Hello, and welcome to Le Gourmet TV. Today, we are going to start a process that I have never done before and we are going to make bacon. I was over at Ted Reader's house, not too long ago, and he served up some of the bacon that he had made, and I thought, Ted's Bacon was really good. And he told me that it wasn't that difficult to make.

So, I am going to attempt it. And doing a little bit of reading, it doesn't seem that it is that difficult to make. It's just a little bit of long process, and that I'll make a dry rub today. I'll rub it into the pork belly, I'll put it into the fridge,7 to 9 days from now, I'll take it out of the fridge and I'll smoke it. So, overall it really doesn't take too much of your time, but it is a fairly lengthy process. This is just about making an absolutely incredible tasting bacon. So much better than most of the commercially available bacon out there. So let's get started.

In this bowl, I have got Coarse Kosher Salt. So this is a non-iodized salt, very important to start with that. And I have got about a two cups here. Now there is a whole pile of different ratios out there, in all kinds of different recipes that I read. And I am going to start out with something that I may end up with too much of the dry rub for the amount of pork that I have got. I have got about 10 pounds of belly. 5.1 kilos, so almost 12 pounds of belly. And I don't really know how much rub, I am going to need. So maybe just a little bit extra.

So I have got about two cups of salt. I am going to add in a cup-and-a-half of brown sugar, and then about three-quarters of a cup of maple syrup. So, we are going to mix this up. So, this is just one way to make bacon. There is also a brining method where you're actually making a brine, like you'd brine a turkey and you slip the pork bellies into that.

Generally, everything that I read, points to the dry cure as being much tastier. Although, it takes a longer time to cure, and since, it's just sitting in the fridge, a week really isn't that big of a deal. Great! So, the cure is mixed together, and now it's time to deal with the pork belly. I have got two pieces here, and I think, they are just little bit too large to manage, so I am going to cut those down a little bit. I just get a knife here. So, this is fresh Ontario pork belly, and it's been provided to me today by Homegrown Ontario. I think that's it's really important to buy locally produced meat. It didn't have to travel very far. This was produced on a small farm, sustainable practices, and I think that's something that we all should support.

So, I am just going to cut these two in half. So I have got four pieces, just a little bit more manageable. And this is pork belly with the rind on. So the skin is still on here. So, that's it, any you can kind of see the texture here of what will become bacon. It looks fantastic. I am going to get a half sheet and put it on the counter here, because I have a feeling that as I rub this mixture into the pork belly, I am going to get it everywhere.

So, the first piece, just take a handful and rub it in. Okay, so I have got the cure rubbed into the pork belly, both sides all around got it in the every nook and cranny. Still got a little bit left over, but not that much. Now, what I am going to do is put these, each of these pieces into a heavy duty freezer bag. It's kind of messy. Try not to get the cure everywhere, on the outside of the bag which is maybe a little bit of chore.

So just force as much air as possible out of the bags, and seal them. Now it's just a waiting game. So I am going to take these four bags I am going to put them into the fridge for the next 7 to 9 days, and everyday, I am just going open up the fridge and turn the bags over. You really want to make sure that the cure is getting into every part of this pork belly. So, I guess I'll see you back here a week from now.
Seven days later and our bacon, and we can call it bacon at this point because the pork bellies have now cured in that salt-sugar mixture, and over the course of seven days, everyday I would just kind of flip it over, and that's just to make sure that all this moisture that's inside the bag, that came out of the pork. So that's all the water that was pushed out of the cells by the salt, and you want to make sure that this cure gets all over. And so that's everyday flipping and making sure that you are moving the moisture around and moving the liquid around.

This is cured bacon essentially and I'm going to take it a step farther and smoke it, but you don't have to. So, you could at this point do the same as I'm going to do here, pull it out of the brine and give it a good rinse under a tap, cold water just to wash all of that brine and sugar and salt off the outside of the pork, or bacon at this point.

If you are not going to smoke it, you can go ahead and cut the skin off the outside, portion it into meal size portions and then seal it and freeze it. Even though it's cured you still have to refrigerate this and it's only going to last so long in your refrigerator. So it's best to freeze which you are not going to use right away. And cook it just like you would cook bacon from the supermarket. But because I'm going to smoke it, I'm going to rinse all of the pieces just like I rinse this one, I'm going to place them on a rack and then I'm going to put this in the fridge for 12-24 hours; in my case, probably 24 hours.

What you want to do is, have it dry out and something called the pellicule, which is a French word for skin or film or small skin, is going to form on the outside. And this just helps it when you take it to the next step and smoke it, it's something for the smoke to stick to and it really improves your flavour in the end. So, I'm just going to rinse the rest of these, thrown them back in the fridge, and then tomorrow we are going to smoke them.
So here we are, it's time for smoking. Now, I don't have a fancy smoker or purpose built smoker. So I am using this plane old charcoal grill, nothing fancy, nothing spectacular, and with this I am just going to have to watch very closely my temperature and the amount of smoke that I am putting out, constantly monitoring it.

I want to keep the temperature at about 175°F, and I want to keep the smoke constant. And I want to get the internal temperature of the pork to about 150°. So on here, I am using maple smoke, and I've got a temperature probe stuck through a potato to an outside thermometer, just so that I can monitor the temperature a little more accurately. This isn't so accurate.

So, the pork has been in the fridge about 12 hours now, so it's dried out a little bit and we form the pellicule. So I am just going to slide these onto the grill, and of course, indirect heat, very low smoke from the side, close the lid, and of course, if you have got a timed purpose built smoker, this next bit, you can kind of walk away and let the smoker do its thing.

I am going to have keep coming back and monitoring like I said, just to make sure I get the temperature and the amount of smoke correctly. But in about 3-5 hours I expect this will be done. Let's see if that works out. So there we go, we have reached the 150° internal temperature, it's time to pull the bacon off. Now this has been smoking for about 4 hours now, and the colour has completely changed. A little bit of the fat has rendered out, the smell is absolutely incredible, and I'm sure that the flavour is about the same.

So it's a very basic recipe for bacon. This is my first time making bacon. I have to admit, I had a little bit of a taste earlier. After I went straight off, and just before I put it into the fridge to get that pellicule to form on the inside, I sliced a little bit off and I fried it up in a pan, just to check out the saltiness. And I realized that it was may be just a little too salty. So I rinsed it for about an hour in cold water, just to the pull some of that salt out, left it in the fridge to form that pellicule, and then I put it out here to smoke.

But I have got to admit, the texture and the flavour of this bacon at that point was absolutely -- probably the best I've ever had. But when I cooked it down, it didn't cook down to almost nothing. It barely shrank at all.

So now with the smoking process, we add an extra layer of flavour to it, and I can't wait to taste it. So what I am going to do now, is wait for it to cool down, and then I'll cut the skin layer off. And with this one, I probably won't take too much fat off, because there really isn't a whole lot of fat on this belly. So I'll take the skin off, and what I'm going to cook immediately over the next, week, I'll wrap it up and keep it in the refrigerator, and what I'm not going to eat in the next week, I'm going to portion it down into dinner size portions, vacuum seal it and freeze it. And you've got to remember, this is a product that you have to keep cool, it will spoil. So you have got to keep it refrigerated, for probably a couple of weeks you can keep it. And the best option is to freeze any access.

So thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you again, and give this a try, it really wasn't that difficult, and it's something that I am probably going to do again, and again, and again, and again, just to kind of refine the technique. So keep your eye on this space for future developments.
How to make bacon recipe video.