Homemade Sausage Making

Cured a pork belly in a brine for 12 days.

Cold smoked in my smokehouse for almost 12 hours with apple wood and hickory. Used a really simple brine recipe. You can easily find it if you google "pop's bacon brine". Turned out really good!!

Drying off after the brine, before smoking




Wood helper

Out of the smoke

Here's the recipe I used:

real simple curing brine:

for every 1 gallon of water, add:

1/3 - 1 cup sea salt (depending if you're on a lo-salt diet)
1 cup granulated sugar or SplendaŸ
1 cup brown sugar or SplendaŸ brown sugar mix
1 tbsp cure no. 1 pink salt

stir thoroughly until clear amber color, pour over meat, inject if necessary to cure from inside-out as well as outside-in

weight down with a partially filled 1 qt or 1 gal. ziploc bag or bags to keep meat immersed

Curing times vary with meat, but generally overnight to 2-3 days for chickens and turkeys, 8-10 days buckboard bacon, 10-14 days belly bacon, pork shoulder, whole butts, 3-4 weeks whole hams, 10-20 days corned beef (fresh beef roasts, briskets, rolled rib roasts, etc.) If whole muscle is more than 2" thick, then inject so it can cure i/o as well as o/i, and/or in and around bone structures, etc.

Bacon looks great. Looks like a got a great helper too. I hope she got the first piece of bacon.

Hi Nick,

Looks like your smoker is doing an awesome job, bacon looks good.

And your daughter to help, she seems happy to work with Dad

Ron

Nick, the bacon looks wonderful, your daughter is beautiful. Are you pleased with your smokehouse?