Dry cure bacon not salty enough?

[Tealy1980]

Hi guys, long time lurker and first time poster! Thanks for all the info I've been reading and on local food heroes, all the info here and there made me jump nervously into my first sausage making and home curing bacon experiment!

So I got a decent piece of pork belly from my butchers and after trimming the ribs and skin off it weighed around 1.2kg, I used the dry cure bacon calculator and recipe including cure number 1 from local food Heros website, left it in the fridge for 5 days in a bag vacuum sealed (by the way hardly any liquid released, maybe a few drops that's all) then took it out and left naked in the fridge for another 5 days.

The issue I have is it isn't salty at all, I mean it literally just tasted like unsalted pork belly, which kind of defeats the object of spending 10 days curing it!

now I'm not a salt overloader by any means but assumed it would have a slightly salty Taste? Or am I basing my expectations on supermarket dry cure bacon. Any advice greatly appreciated! I put most of the cure on the meat side, rubbed in well, flipped every day or so.

Thanks in advance.

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. Wheels has two bacon cures on his site, which did you use? I assume the bacon was uniform and pink. I think he will be along soon with some ideas.

[wheels]

Hi Tealy,

The cure in the tutorial on this forum is quite mild - but then one man's mild is....etc.

I have a couple on my site. The saltiest is 2.25% salt, which is still quite mild. Some commercial ones in the UK are over 3% and more.

You could use this one and add more salt to the level you want:

http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/?e=561

Or there's a calculator to enable you to create your own cure safely here:

http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/calcul ... ure_bacon/

Don't forget that reducing the sugar will also make the product seem more salty.

I hope this helps.

Phil

[Tealy1980]

Thanks For the welcome Paul, and thanks for the quick reply Phil to be fair I used the my favourite bacon one which does state it's less salty, I guess I my pallete is over commercialised to the bacon they churn out! It's not horrible by any means anyway and I just added a bit of rock salt from the grinder on it anyway

I'll try adding a touch more salt, off to the butchers again on Saturday to have another go..

I believe it's all about personal preference and finding the right balance which only comes with experience, like you say one mans mild...

[DanMcG]

Welcome to the forums Tealy. Could you post the quantities you used for your bacon. I'm not a salty bacon fan and I use Phil's mild recipe as my go to mix, and I find it perfect. Like mentioned, sugar will mask the saltiness and can even completely hide it if you want it to.

[Tealy1980]

Thanks Dan, I did actually reply last night to Phil and Paul but it says my posts need to go to a moderator before they are posted? I expect the same will happen with this one!

But here's the actual quantities I used:

Pork belly: 1.125kg
Salt: 25gm
Sugar: 9gm
Cure1: 2.81gm

And a bit of dried thyme sprinkled over the meat too

[NCPaul]

The logical next step would be to start cold smoking the bacon. I'm starting to form an idea about breakfast.

[wheels]

Given that you seem to like a saltier product, maybe try:

PER KG MEAT
30g salt
5gm sugar
2.5gm Cure #1
Your choice of herb/spice/flaourings.

...as a starting point.

Phil