Curing Pork

People have been curing meats for thousands of years, both to preserve large quantities for later consumption and for the deliciousness that can be imparted to it by a simple application of salt, cold and time!

Pigs are a prime candidate for curing, traditionally being killed in early winter when they become uneconomic to feed  any longer......they will use much if not all of their daily intake maintaining themselves rather than gaining weight and what weight is gained is mostly extra fat!

Winter is also the ideal time to cure meats, because a temperature at which meat will not rapidly spoil is much easier to maintain, which means the cure has the time to work its magic. Naturally, with a decent modern fridge it is a lot easier to guarentee correct temperatures and small batches of cured loins, bacons or gammons can be made at home at any time of year. Nonetheless the availability and price of pork at this time of year makes it THE moment to stock up on delicious porky goodies for the year ahead! Locally (here in France), the supermarkets are heading into their post christmas pork promotion season too, so why not try your hand at a little low cost curing!

I have a few more bacon recipes to come in the next week or two along with a better recipe for homemade gammons like the one above. Its about time I put some of this bacon in the smoker too...nothing beats a bit of home smoked bacon!

Wet Curing Bacon #1 - Simple Wet Cure Recipe

Before I go into some more of my fav dry curing recipes, heres a quick way of brine/wet curing your bacon. I have a couple of bellies on order for the weekend, so will add some photos when I do that batch. You could equally well buy some loin or ham to try the recipe out for back bacon or a gammon! 

As the meat is to be submerged in a water based cure (brine), you will need a larger container than for making the simple dry cured bacon. You will also need a plate and a weight to keep the meat fully submerged in the brine throughout the process. Otherwise as with dry curing you really need no special equipment. If you can't fit a large enough container in your fridge, then you could try using a cooler box and ice packs as also described in the dry cure post.

Wet/Brine Cure Ingredients for 5 kilos of bacon

600 g Salt (Sel)
200 g Brown Sugar (Sucre Roux)
18 g Cure #1 (Optional)
5 litres Water (Eau)
1 large Onion - chopped (Oignon)
5 whole cloves of Garlic (Ail)
4 Bay Leaves (Feuilles de Laurier)
25g Pepper - cracked (Poivre)


The Brine

Bring the water to a boil and add all the other ingredients EXCEPT!!! the Cure#1 (if you are using it). This MUST be added once the brine has cooled down otherwise it will not work.....sorry for all the shouting but it is very important not to add the cure powder to hot water.

Once the salt and sugar are well disolved hold the brine at a light boil for ten mins, remove from stove and leave to cool. Once the brine is well cooled, add the Cure #1, stir in, then transfer to the fridge to chill.  Leave overnight so that your meat and brine will be at the same temperature the next morning.

Curing Time

This is dead easy....take meat, put it into your plastic container and add the brine. Get a plate, place it on top of the meat and add enough weight to keep the meat from bobbing above the surface. Put the lid on and return to the fridge. You really don't need to check on and turn the meat so much as with a dry cure but its still a good idea to turn the meat in the brine every day or so, so that one area doesn't rest squashed up against the plate all the time.

The length of time the meat needs to cure depends on the thickness of the cut used. A 1 kg loin roast will take 5 to 7 days depending on how salty you like the finished product. If using belly, then 4 or 5 days will do the job,  a day less if the skin is removed first.

This will not be the sort of heavily salted bacon you can hang up somewhere and just cut bits off when required. It needs to be handles like fresh meat despite the curing. The shorter the time the meat stays in the cure, the shorter the bacon should be kept...unless you want to freeze some for later.  If kept in fridge it should easily last the week though. If doing in bulk, I probably wouldn't go more than 6 weeks vac packed in the fridge, but in the freezer you can happily store the bacon for 6 months or more.