Alright. Where were we. Oh yes. Home made or artisan made bacon is simply the best thing ever. Once you’ve had it, it is not an easy thing to forget!

When I dream of bacon - this is what I see.

We cannot say enough good things about the transformation that the humble pork belly makes when it is cured and then either smoked or simply roasted in the oven. You end up with an ingredient that will transform the simplest soup, stew, salad…um…scone, sandwich, burger, shepherd’s pie, braise….into something really sumptuous.

This is part 2 of our bacon tutorial. Its arguably the simpler part of the bacon making process if you’re familiar with smoking. It becomes even simpler if you simply roast it in the oven. Smoking is not necessary at all. An oven roasted bacon is a beautiful thing. The ever meat-tastic Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reports that he smokes maybe a quarter of the bacon he makes. He finds that the oven roasted bacon makes for an excellent ingredient as well as being very tasty out of the pan. All this is to say that if you do not have access to a smoker, don’t fret – the oven is a perfect place to finish a bacon.

Our home made bacon has been sitting in the fridge for 5 days in its cure (See Makin’ Bacon part 1…or even better, Bacon – The Movie Part 1). We’ve been turning it once a day and rearranging the pieces so that the each take a turn at the bottom of the stack. After about 5 days, the flesh will firm up and will become a richer hue of redish pink rather than the light pink of the raw pork belly. If it still feels really squishy and looks light pink, give it another day.

Anywhere between 3 and 7 days the belly will be cured. The longer it sits in the cure, though, the saltier it will become. I find that, if I measured 50g (1/4ish cup) of cure per 3-5 lb belly, 5 days works quite nicely. It allows the spices to permeate the meat and the cure is solid but not too salty.

Some people rinse the belly at this stage. I find that when using this curing method, there is no need to rinse. You’ll also get the added bonus of keeping the spices on the meat which adds some nice texture and great flavor to your finished bacon.

Weber at 250 degrees at the top of the dome. This equals 230ish degrees at the grill surface.

Our lovely bacons after about 3 hours in the smoke. The "Smokinator 1000" smokebox is on the left hand side of the grill.

At this point you can either very simply wrap them in foil and roast them in the oven at 250f for about 3 hours to an internal temperature of 130f OR you can hot smoke them.

We’ll be doing an more in depth exploration of smoking at a later point. You can check out the soon to be released movie to get a brief overview. The short story is that you want to smoke it at 230ish degrees for, again, about 3 hours. I like either Oak, Maple, Alder and small amounts of hickory but you’ll need to experiment to get a taste that agrees with the taste buds of you and yours’. These bellies are being smoked in a combination of Oak and Alder (ignore what I said in the video…I changed my mind mid course). I went for a lighter flavoured smoke because I wanted to the spices and the quality of the meat to really shine through. It really gave the bacon a great light smoky flavour that complimented everything very well.

Once the bellies have been smoked or roasted, you’ll want to let them cool a touch, and then cut the rind (skin) off. Its helps to angle the blade up towards the skin while using long even strokes when doing this. It stops you from cutting into the layer of meat underneath.

From here you want to chill the bacons overnight and then carve into portions and freeze what you are not going to use immediately. We vacuum bag ours up and put groovy/nerdy labels (it is a fine line sometimes) on them for friends.

Cinnamon bacon cut into chunks, vacuum packed and ready for the freezer and friends.

Bacon in the cast iron pan with some green tomatoes from the garden.

When you cook this kind of bacon, you will discover that it is nothing like commercial bacon. It does not shrink in the pan at all. The best way to cook it is on low heat. I prefer a cast iron pan but any heavy pan will do the trick.When we finished the bacon, Mrs. Stephenson and I made ourselves these amazing bacon and panfried green tomato sandwiches on rye bread. So so good.

Please keep an eye out for future discussions on smoking and “The Smokenator 1000″ which is the most excellent and ingenious tool that we used in the Weber kettle grill to smoke the bacon.

I can personally vouch for the deliciousness of these sandwiches. They were spectacular.

Some excellent sources for diving deeper into makin’ bacon and meat curing are Michael Ruhmann’s Charcouterie and Mr. Meat,  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Meat book. Two different approaches though both very committed to making excellent cured meats.

Stay tuned for the movie accompaniment to this posting. It’ll be coming within a day or so. In the meantime, best of luck with your bacon makin’.