Making Bacon

For those who have enlisted for a Guerrilla Pig, one of the greatest treats you can look forward to is homemade bacon. No more of that icky white gunk in the pan. This is real bacon. Food of our forefathers.


It's really simple. For tools, you require a thin, sharp knife, scales, cutting board and some bacon cure mixture. You can mix your own bacon cure, see recipe below. There are countless recipes for curing bacon. Brother Hugh likes to use sea salt with a pinch of saltpetre (see River Cottage Cookbook for details). Hugh's curing recipes tend to be rather too Victorian for my taste, they're slapdash and excessively salty. For a consistent result I like the bacon cures from http://www.sausagemaking.org/


Next take your loin of pork. This is the trickiest part of the whole exercise. Very carefully remove the spine and ribs leaving the bacon shaped loin behind. It is ridiculously easy to nick the eye of the loin and leave the bacon in ribbons. I often make a hash of it.


Now, you're almost done. Weigh out the required quantity of cure mix. In this case 50 grammes per kilo of meat. Add the cure to the meat and rub it in ensuring it gets into all the nooks and crannies and is evenly distributed.


Now wrap it tightly in clingfilm or vacuum pack and store it in the fridge between 1 and 4 degrees centigrade. Turn the meat every two days and cure for 1 day for every half inch plus 2 days. We've found a week and it is far too salty, 4-5 days is about right for an average loin. When time's up, take it from the fridge, wash it in clean cold water. Return to the fridge uncovered to mature and lose some moisture, alternatively tuck in straight away. Hack off thick slices with your sharpest knife and drop into your favourite frying pan. Serve with pride and a dollop of satisfaction.
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If you fancy going it alone and making your own bacon cure, the following recipe is honest and straight forward:

Oddleys Dry Cure (Saltpetre)

Saltpetre 5 Grams
Salt Weight 200 grams
Sugar Weight 100 grams
Sodium Ascorbate 5.5 grams - Sodium L-ascorbate; E301 - You could however; assuming that ascorbic acid (vitamin C, E300) is allowed by the applicable codes/standards; substitute it for sodium ascorbate though based on their molecular weights you would need to reduce the amount used by 16.667 %

Usage 31 grams per 1 kg meat