What to do with my Pork Belly?

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Green Hornet

Head Chef
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
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Port st. Lucie, Florida
My neighbor works for a food distributor and had a bacon demonstration for the employees on how Bacon is made and cut. She had 18lbs of raw pork belly delivered to show where it came from on the pig. It had some really small wood chips and some kind of injectible marinade, or whatever wrapped up with it when it was shipped. She also had some shipped in that had already been smoked by someone else. My neighbor had no idea how long the mirinade was used or cooking temps. it was purely a visual aide for the workers. So she asked me if I wanted it so of course it is now in the fridge. I am going to try to make bacon with it, obviously, as soon as I can. I don't want to screw it up too bad.
Any suggestions as to how to do this right. I will not have any wood other than oak available for the cook, so hook a brutha up with some times, temps, whatever else I need.
 
you can cook it, but if you want it to taste like bacon,
it needs to be cured.....just good sugar and salt cures,
you'll find a recipe that you calls for stuff you've probably
got in the house.
 
Anybody know how much cured, smoked bacon 18 lbs of belly meat should yield?

--John
(The several bacon-makin' sites I looked at say you should get to curing it soon after slaughter.)
 
Thanks for the help! Brian that looks like the way I will go. Nice link! :D
I do not have curing salts, but I do have plenty of Kosher salt and sugar. I like the way the guy did his 3 ways. I will probably try that too. It is a huge chunk of meat right now. I will post some pics as I get into it ;)
 
Green Hornet said:
I do not have curing salts, but I do have plenty of Kosher salt and sugar.

Around here you can pick up Mortons tender quick in most super markets, and that would be the quick and simple addition, to the salt and sugar to make a dry cure.

There is info on the packages, but also more available on the Mortons site.

Tips
Curing
Tenderquick
 
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