Curing Bacon at Home

Over a year ago I had bought some pork belly at Nature's Harmony Farm.  Unsure what to do with it, I kept it in the freezer all this time.  Recently I had the motivation to figure out how to cure it, with our own pork ready to be brought home in a few days.  So I researched recipes online and used them as a basis to create my own homemade bacon cure.

The ingredients:
1/2 c. kosher salt
1 1/2 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed
2 small sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 sprig of fresh thyme, crumbled to remove leaves
1 bay leaf
10 juniper berries
fresh ground pepper

I hand ground the garlic and herbs with a mortar and pestle, then blended them with the salt.

Some recipes use glass or plastic containers; others use ziploc bags.  I chose the container method for my bacon.  I cut a new plastic sink liner in pieces and used a piece to raise the bacon up out of any liquid that would drain out during the curing process.

Next I rubbed the curing salt all over the pork belly and into any crevices, then closed the container and put it in the fridge.

Two days later I drained off the small amount of fluid that had collected in the bottom of the container and reapplied the curing salt.

After five days I could see that no more liquid was draining out, and the bacon was quite a bit firmer than it had been at first.  The final step was to thoroughly rinse the bacon, pat it dry, and smoke it for 2 hours with hickory chips.

A few days later when Herb came home for Thanksgiving, he cooked the bacon for breakfast.

We learned a few things from this experiment:
(1) The ideal time for curing the bacon is 3 to 5 days;
(2) one hour is long enough to smoke it, and
(3) it was truly delicious, and we can't wait to taste our own bacon!