Tiktok link to my homemade bacon video:
http://vm.tiktok.com/ZMF9deAjN/

I still can’t believe my homemade bacon Tiktok video went viral and hit 3.4 million views! Really thankful so many people saved my video and hope it helps inspire people to make their own bacon at home.

Benefits of Making Homemade Bacon:

Nothing wrong with store bought bacon and I will always buy store bought bacon because it’s just so convenient. Yes making homemade bacon is a time investment (5 days cure and 6 hour smoke), but so worth it!

Store bought bacon is injected with a lot of water and so when you cook it, the bacon shrinks. Do you really want to pay for the water weight injected into the bacon? But with homemade bacon, it does shrink a bit as you render the fat, it still maintains 90% of its size.

I love cutting homemade bacon thick and when making your own bacon you get to control the thickness. I also love the natural smoke flavour from the hickory or apple wood. I just don’t get that high quality smoke flavour from the store bought bacon. I also find that homemade bacon has a better meaty texture.

BBQ “Rules”

In my cooking journey, I found it frustrating how many bad recipes are published. This includes famous chefs who publish recipes in fancy expensive cookbooks that result in subpar food. These lies continue to be repeated to the point that the general public really believes them to be the absolute way or a rule that cannot be broken. So when I do eventually figure out the traditional recipe that restaurants are using, I do honour those recipes but I think there is always room for innovation. Without innovation, we would all be eating fancy jello as dessert at restaurants which was popular in the 60s.

If one famous BBQ pit master says to smoked it at 180F and another one says they smoke it at 275F. How do you know which temperature should be used? I say try both and experiment and figure out which one you like.

If an Asian style pork belly dish is more succulent and juicy and a traditional American style bacon is dry but also really crispy, which one should be the standard? There is no right answer, but as a cook you must decide what you prefer.

I say keep an open mind on recipes and always weed out the “fake” recipes out there. When you read my recipes I publish, I have no secrets. I will tell you exactly how I make it and I will not leave out a step.

Do you need a smoker?

I have an Oklahoma Joe’s Highland Offset smoker. I also purchased a custom made baffle plate on the inside to ensure a better smoke flow. Yes having an offset smoker increases the quality of the smoke and the end product of the bacon. However, when I first started making bacon, I would combine 1/2 wet and 1/2 dry wood chips in tin foil and I would us a regular gas bbq. I would put the foil packet on one side of the gas BBQ and the bacon on the other side of the gas BBQ off heat. But you do end up with a lot of lower quality smoke.

Curing:

I do use a curing salt. Sometimes this is called pink salt. Some curing salts are dyed pink so that people don’t mix it up with normal salt. But I’ve never mixed it up before so I use the curing salts that are not coloured. Why do I use curing salts? It gives the bacon that nice pinkish colour and reduces the chances of botulism or other bacteria from growing.

Does the salt matter? Yes! Different salts have a different concentration of saltiness. I prefer using a sea salt that looks almost like snow flakes. A good kosher salt can work too. Personally I would avoid the cheap iodine table salt or Himalayan pink salt. You may have to experiment a bit with the salt you choose. If the bacon you made was too salty, then adjust the salt lower. When I did try using a Himalayan pink salt, I found I had to increase the quantity since it just wasn’t salty enough.

Ultimately I wash off the dry rub. If you don’t wash it off, it will be too salty and sweet in my opinion. I use brown sugar to add that sweetness but since I’m washing off most of it, I really don’t see the point of using expensive maple syrup. If I were to use maple syrup, once the bacon is nicely pan fried and ready to eat, I would pour expensive maple syrup on top. It’s kind of like cooking with an expensive cold pressed organic olive oil. Why waste such an expensive oil while cooking? I would use a cheaper oil to cook with and then add the organic cold pressed olive oil as a finishing oil.

Why do I cure only 5 days? Well I really like the Asian style pork belly and the juiciness it has. So with a 5 day cure, it retains more juiciness which I prefer. You can definitely cure it for more days if you want the more traditional bacon. Also with the 5 day cure and the added juiciness and it stands up to the higher temperatures I smoke my bacon.

Equipment:

Wood chips/chunks (hickory or apple wood)

1 gallon ziploc freezer bag

Smoker

Meat thermometer

Ingredients:

3 pounds of pork belly

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sea salt

1/2 teaspoon curing salts

STEP 1: Prepare the pork belly:

Cut pork belly into 3 pounds each and remove the skin.

STEP 2: Mix the rub

Combine the brown sugar, sea slat and curing salts in a bowl. Then rub all over the bacon evenly.

STEP 3: Curing

Put the pork belly into the ziploc bag and put into the fridge. Every day turn the bag over. Cure the bacon in the fridge for 5 days. I like curing fo 5 days as it retains more juiciness but cure it longer if you prefer.

STEP 4: Wash and Air Dry

After 5 days remove the bacon from the ziploc bag and wash the pork belly with water. Then put on a rack and let it air dry in the fridge for 2 days.

STEP 5: Smoke it

I start a fire with hickory wood or apple wood. When you first start a fire, it creates a grey dirty smoke but as the coals develop, the smoke turns to a more clear blueish colour. Once it turns blueish clear smoke, add the bacon to the smoker and smoke it for 2-3 hours at 300F. As you add new wood, it will create the dirty smoke as it catches fire. That is unavoidable but you want to minimize the amount of dirty grey smoke as much as possible. Remove the bacon once it hits an internal temperature of 160F.

STEP: Cut it

Once the smoking is done, I put it back into the fridge to cool down. A cooled down pork belly is easier to cut as it hardens a bit. I have a slicer but using just a regular chef’s knife works too. I prefer thick cut bacon but if you want that crispy texture, then you will have to cut it thinner.

Pan fry it and serve! I know some people like baking the bacon on a sheet pan. The best bacon ever!

Note: When I do make large batches, I use an air sealer to vacuum pack the bacon and I freeze the bacon. The bacon is good frozen for about 6 months.