Makin’ Bacon: Rounds 2 & 3
Following on from Makin’ Bacon: Round 1, I thought I’d have another go. The thing is, round 2 didn’t go very well either. For two reasons.
One, I still didn’t listen to the advice from the butcher. Not because I didn’t want to listen to him, not because I thought I knew better, but because I just didn’t really think about it.
Two, I decided in my infinite wisdom to get the whole side of pork in, and then de-bone it myself and then I’ve got ribs, and some meat ready for makin’ into bacon.
This is the only photo I took.
Ask yourself why.
(It… did not… go well…)
I managed to get the bones out, with about half the actual meat still attached (which was supposed to be for bacon) but I made a total hash of it. I then tried a wet cure, for some reason (I Googled stuff, liked the sound of it, and tried it).
Now this came out a lot better than the last batch of bacon, despite the fact it looked like it’d been hacked with a saw, but it came out better. It was however, far too salty. After I realised it was salty, I let it soak in water for another day to help bring some of the excess salt out (if I recall, I got my percentages wrong and did waaaaay too much salt).
It resembled bacon, but I was still far from happy.
So…
“OK Mr Butcher, please can you get me the side of pork and butcher it for me ready to make bacon, and I’ll take the ribs too please.”
Problem one solved.
“Also Mr Butcher, could you please get me some curing salts that you’d use, and let me know what to do”
He (Harrison, my butcher, who I don’t actually call Mr Butcher) even gave me a couple of bags to cure it in.
I forgot to take a pic of it before-hand, but this was it ready to go in the fridge for 5 days.
I turned it every day as per instruction, and when it had been 5 days, I took it out, thoroughly rinsed it, and sliced off the trial slice…
No that’s not a huge rasher of bacon, just a tiny frying pan.
Anyway, it was good. Not just okay… not pretty good, it was good.
So thanks to Mr Butcher, I had some good bacon:
That was bagged up into portions of 8 rashers, and frozen, and supplied me with weekend breakfasts for weeks. But, I didn’t get into this just to make good bacon. I wanted to make amazing bacon.
So on to Round 4, then, right?
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