Bacon: Part 1

I've never been that big a bacon fan, but since becoming a foodie and a cook I've developed a respect for it. The good stuff; the good, hardwood-smoked stuff or why bother? I've gone through phases of eating bacon with heirloom tomatoes, but 85% of the time I use bacon, it's an ingredient rather than a side dish. I've actually thrown out a fair amount of bacon simply because it's hard to eat it outside of a recipe.
What on Earth could possibly compel me to cure and smoke my own bacon then? Well, isn't respect is nearly as meaningful as addiction (Many addicts probably don't give a damn if the pork belly was smoked over applewood)? I run around dreaming of all the culinary feats I can accomplish (I wonder how long before I attempt a french macaroon), and eventually I think I'll follow through on all of them.
It doesn't hurt that I bought The Better Bacon Book: Make, Cook, and Eat Your Way to Cured Pork Greatness iPad app. Tom Mylan of The Meat Hook in Brooklyn (I think I bought pancetta there once when I needed it and I was shopping at the Brooklyn Kitchen anyway) writes several chapters and many videos about building a DIY-smoker and curing and smoking bacon. There is a totally bad-ass video of him butchering down the side of a pig down to the pork belly that I like to show practically everyone.
The app also has fantastic bacon-centric recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, Cocktails, and Side Dishes from great restaurants across the country (Harvard Square's own Russell House Tavern is featured in the Cocktails section).

Today I finally managed to figure out how to use this electric drill I bought to cut necessary holes into a galvanized steel trash can. I also went and spent $31 on pork belly and prepped it. Next week I expect to smoke it and write a corresponding entry, but here goes Part 1:


Aha! I have finally created a hole big enough for my electric range.
By the way, Tom Mylan made this process look incredibly easy and cheap. While it still may be a lot cheaper than buying prefabricated smoker, I had to buy an electric drill and several larger drill bits to accomplish this.


Tom Mylan's trash can doesn't really look all that different from mine, but I couldn't for the life of me find a grill grate that didn't just fall to the bottom of the trashcan. Its sides are straight and either I had to go with one that was too small or too large. I reasoned I could work with too small.
In any case I spent some time thinking about how I could rig the grate to a certain stabilized heights and my thoughts were running to wood or pipe. So here's the hole I drilled closer to the top of the trashcan. I'll have drilled three more by the time I'm ready to smoke.


The hardware I finally decided to use. I don't know why I only bought two of them. I'll have to buy another pair before the weekend.


Installation.


This is ALMOST all good.


5 1/4 lbs of pork belly. I said I'd skin it myself since I sort of want to make chicharones soon (the Spanish word for utterly great, fresh pork rinds), but I kind of butchered the process a bit and might let them do it next time.
I do need the practice, but I might not always want to bother with making chicharones. Also returning to the concept of practice, I feel pressure to teach myself how to butcher. I don't even cut up whole chickens for recipes, and any respectable chef knows how to butcher... Not that I want to be a chef... Just yet.


Felt like I was wasting the fat cap.


The second half looked worse? Or perhaps just as bad but in a different way?


The pork skin with plenty of fat on it I'm sure. I'll have to remove all of it to prep chicharones. More on this in a future entry.


So one pound each of kosher salt and dark brown sugar seems a bit much for the amount of pork belly I'm using, but I still went with it.


Mixed together by hand. Please don some latex gloves here because you don't want to get this under your fingernails.


Applied to the fat side.


Then applied to the reverse.


Oh gee, I guess there's enough cure left over for another round. Next time I'll stick with a combination of a 1/2 pound of each salt and sugar.


The point of a cure is to draw moisture out of meat in order to preserve it. This photograph are my notes of how much each particular piece of pork belly weighs and the range at which is should weigh before smoking (18-25% less). Tom Mylan says that this could happen within 4 days, but I'm certainly not going to smoke the bacon for 7 hours until at least Saturday.