Ingredients
- Simerville Farm pork belly (I tend to use jowls because they are even better than belly), about 1kg or so
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tbps allspice
- 1tbps cumin (or curry powder if you prefer)
- 1 tbps corse ground black pepper
- 2 tsp chipotle powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- A smoker and wood chips to smoke the meat. I have used cherry and maple but anything will work, experiment and have fun.
Instructions
- Grind all spices into a powder and mix with salt and sugar.
- Prepare meat by bringing it to room temperature and pat dry until it is moist enough that the spices will stick to it.
- Drag meat through spice mix and rub the spice mix into the meat. Place meat with the spice rub on it into a ziplock bag and and put it in the fridge, flipping it every day. If curing more than one piece of meat use separate bags for each piece.
Simerville Farm pork jowls rubbed in spices and ready to go into the fridge for a few days to cure.
- After 5 to 7 days wash meat to remove the spice mix and pat dry. Again the meat doesn’t need to be dry but slightly moist because the smoke will “stick” better to wet meat than dry meat.
- Follow the instructions for you smoker, but we tend to smoke for about 2 or 3 hours.
- Put bacon in ziplock bags and refrigerate for a day before slicing. Technically the bacon doesn’t need to be refrigerated before slicing but it does help firm up it up a little and make slicing it easier.
- We freeze the slices in 200g portions.
- This last step is also not required, but it will happen. You will curse my name because once you have eaten bacon you cured and smoked yourself, store bought bacon will not be the same. Enjoy!