Homemade Sausage Making

I love bacon but not the price of pork bellies. Pork butts are still reasonably priced and I have made buckboard bacon in the past with great results. I figured why not grind up some butt and shape into a loaf shaped like bacon? Problem is, there is little info out there on what ingredients to use. I still have a good supply of Hi Mountain brand Buckboard Bacon Cure and decided to figure out how to use it with ground meat. This cure only gives instructions for using whole muscle meats so I had to do some research and calculations to get the amounts just right.

Knowing that cure #1 contains 6.25% sodium nitrite (NaNO2) and that Hi Mountain BBB cure contains 0.70% NaNO2, I calculated that I would need to use 2.36331% to arrive at the same amount of NaNO2 as in cure #1. Also, I did not want to go over 1.8% salt content and it just so happens that Hi Mountain BBB cure has 704mg sodium per 2.27 grams which equates to 1.8% salt when using a total of 2.36331% cure mix which is perfect.

Hi Mountain BBB cure consists of salt, brown sugar, sugar, maple sugar and sodium nitrite so nothing else is really needed. Here's the amounts I used with excellent results:

Hi Mountain Buckboard Bacon cure mix_________________ 2.36331%__(23.6g/Kg meat)
Ice Water________________________________________ 8%_______(80ml/Kg meat)
Butcher & Packer Special Meat Binder (phosphates)_______0.5%_______(5g/Kg meat)

Mix above into ground meat of your choice until quite sticky. Then press firmly into a loaf pan that is lined with plastic wrap. Keep the loaf at 2" thick. I used a 9" x 12" loaf pan which was just the right size and could handle probably 5 lbs of ground meat.

Place loaf in refrigerator at least overnight and up to 24 hours.

Unwrap loaf and place on smoker screen and place in smoker. Heat loaf with NO smoke for 2 hours at 120° to 130° F until dry on the surface.

Apply smoke (I used apple pellets in my Amazing pellet smoker) for 2 to 3 hours and a temperature of 155° F.

Stop smoke and increase smoker temperature to 175° F until internal meat temperature is 150° F.

Cool to room temperature and then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. The next day, slice to desired thickness and package.

Cook ground meat bacon just like you would real bacon. It will keep its shape and not shrink much. The flavor, if using ground pork, is exactly like real bacon. Give it a try.

My next venture is to come up with the proper amounts of brown sugar and maple sugar to add to salt and cure #1 to make it taste similar to Hi Mountain's cure mix.



1.2Kg ground pork butt (lighter color) and 900 g 80/20 ground beef (darker color) in 9 x 12 plastic wrap lined pan



After overnight rest in fridge, bacon loaf placed in smoker. Note I sprinkled freshly ground black pepper on the top of loaf.



Finished loaf. Waiting for it to cool to room temp and then will wrap and refrigerate overnight.



Sliced up. The darker colored slices are the ground beef ones.



Waffles with eggs and ground pork bacon. Tastes just like real bacon! Thanks for looking.

Just like smoked spam. Good idea and carry through

great idea and awesome looking follow-through!

ssorllih wrote:Just like smoked spam. Good idea and carry through

Tastes way better than Spam. Actually tastes a bit like Taylor pork roll, if you've ever had it.

how was the pork vs. the beef?

JerBear wrote:how was the pork vs. the beef?

I haven't tried frying any of the beef yet. Cold, it tastes good but I like the pork version better (pig fat rules). I believe this recipe would be good if you want to use game meat or beef and add at least 40% pork trim and pork fat. Can't wait to try this with venison or elk.

IdaKraut wrote:

ssorllih wrote:Just like smoked spam. Good idea and carry through

Tastes way better than Spam. Actually tastes a bit like Taylor pork roll, if you've ever had it.

Great idea! Looks good too! And i agree-pork belly prices are downright scary!


I like Spam, but I DO Love Taylor pork roll ("Taylors Ham")-and I have even made a homemade version of it in July 2011. It disappeared quickly!
Your GMB looks very similar!

Kevin

Kevin,
Thank you sir. I believe you will like making this. I was thinking of stuffing it into 3.5" fibrous casings to make Taylor pork roll actually. It should be really good. I am ordering some maple sugar from Amazon and try to figure out the amounts to use with cure #1. I will also either add ECA (encapsulated citric acid) or a fast acting LAB starter culture and it should be almost identical in taste to the real thing.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for how much sugar (i.e., brown, regular, maple to use). I've never made bacon before so I have no idea of what recipe to use. The key to making this with ground pork (or other ground meats) is to keep the sodium nitrites within recommended limits and limit the salt to around 1.8%.

BTW, I published a recipe for Jersey pork roll on Len Poli's site some time ago but think it used too many spices. I bet using a simple maple sugar bacon cure recipe is all one needs to replicate it.

Hi Rudy,
That smoked pork/beef loaf of yours looks great. I have ordered the Hi Mountain bacon cure here and will be making it myself shortly. I lean more towards the 100% pork version.
Thank you for sharing your experiment, keep them coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Best Regards,
Jan.

There is a very good reason to try this , and I will. One price that i got for local fresh pork bellies was 3.75 per pound! I can buy butts for 1.29. This will substitute for canadian bacon very nicely.

I have had some success with doing a bacon cure on pork butts. I believe that what i will try is a bacon cure with salt, cure#1 and brown sugar. Then cold smoke then grind and stuff and slow bake to 155° F internal temp.

I learned something interesting about artificial maple flavor. It comes from sotolon, which is found in fenugreek seeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotolon

Artificial maple syrup is made with corn syrup, doesn't taste very good, and I really don't want to use it on lovely pork bellies! I have made bacon using just pure maple syrup, but it has never been mapley enough for me. Didn't want to use too much syrup because it's so dang expensive, so I bought some "natural maple flavored sugar" from Butcher Packer. It was only $1.92 for a lb., so obviously the "natural" flavor is immitation flavor. I liked the results quite a bit.

This discussion on using pork butt instead of belly to save money reminded me of the sotolon thing. Now I want to try making bacon from pork butt. Great idea! Though I can still buy belly for $2.49 lb from Vietnamese stores in San Jose. Pork belly is getting very trendy - maybe that's one reason why it is going up faster than other cuts.

I was just reading the Chicago Mercentile exchange details of trades in pork bellies. If you want 40,000 pounds it is sometime posible to score a buy at less than 90 cents per pound.
I will continue to search.

I found a guy about an hour north of me that will sell pork belly to me for $2.49/lb. IF I buy a 25-30lb. box. The fuel cost for a 2 hour trip brings cost closer to $3.30/lb.

Wish I had someone close to me so we could split the box!

My sister lives in that town; maybe one time when they are coming down, I can have them bring it.

I still would like to try smoking belly some day. Ross, I've made close to 20lbs. from shoulder using your formulation, and we really love it!

Jim

You guys are very luck indeed paying low prices for pork bellies. Here the cost on a special $8.99 per kg.
Whole back legs are on special at $ 2.99 per kg same with whole fore-quarters.
Pork bellies must be trendy.
I will be buying a whole sow in the near future, better colour and taste and some decent backfat.
Regards,
Jan.