Bacon, to Cure
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the pork with coarse sea salt and let it cure for 3 weeks if under 20 lbs, or 4 weeks if over 20 lbs.
Smoke and dry
After curing, hang the pork in a heated room or smoke-house for 2 to 3 weeks.
Expose the meat to smoke from the slow combustion of sawdust to complete the drying process.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Pork hams or flitches
- Provides the meat that is cured, dried and smoked into bacon.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during the cure.
- Oak or hard wood sawdust
- Its slow-burning smoke flavours the meat and helps it dry and develop colour.
The step that matters
Curing with salt for the full time. Salt must penetrate the whole cut to preserve the meat and balance moisture. Curing for too short a time leaves uneven or unsafe results, so the timing by weight matters.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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