Homemade Sausage Making

My first canadian bacon. I cured in a wet brine for 10 days and smoked til IT was about 155.

The Brine cooking up to get all dissolved. Cooled before adding the meat


The loin cut in half


Into the fridge in the brine to soak up the goodness and cure.



Into the smoker


All smoked up


And sliced nice

Gorgeous, gorgeous, fage-O! The color on the smoke is just beautiful. What kind of a brine did you use? Keep it up pal.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Looks very nice!

The wife loves CB, so I too would like to know the brine mix you used. Can't have too many cures!

Charlie

Is that an old oven that you're using for a smoker?

...clever idea. What's the lowest temperature that you can control? ...and what do you use for a smoke source?

(There sure are some clever people on this forum.)

I used 2 gallons of water, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 TBS cure #1, a couple big wats of minced garlic, some fresh cracked black pepper, a couple bay leaves, and cayenne pepper.

I made my smoker out of an old dishwasher. I'll post some pics of the build on the smoker forum. I basically just stripped it down to the steel tub and built a wood frame. I can keep it at ambient temp using an amazen pellet smoker in the mailbox on the side. Or I have gone as high as 340* with it. I've cold smoked some cheese and belly bacon.

Not to knock anyone, but up here in the "Great White North", we call that stuff "BACK BACON". Canadian bacon is the same as any bacon, the only difference is that the hogs are finished with a combination of mostly barley, some wheat, & oats rather than corn. Crawl all over me for the comment, but that is fact!!!

Have others also noted the different finishing diets used for pigs in different countries. In Spain they favor acorns, Italy will use cheese rind if available, in Poland potatoes are a good choice, Canada favors the small cereals grains, in Virginia it was peanuts that were considered the proper finish.

Thanks for the knowledge. I learn something new every day. Yes it is loin bacon that we call Canadian bacon down here.