Makin’ Bacon–Part III A Maple Variation

Q.  I really enjoyed your blogs on makin’ bacon.  I like different flavored bacons, such as maple.  Can you tell me how to do this?

Absolutely. 

This recipe is not etched in stone and there are more things that you can do.  So, just for one example (mainly because you asked!), here is a way to make maple infused bacon.

Ingredients:

• 6 pounds of fresh pork belly. 
• Ask your butcher to cut it into two 3 pound slabs
• 1/2 gallon water
• 6 ounces of Kosher or pickling salt
• 4 ounces maple sugar, which consists of:
• (1/2 ounce maple syrup and 4 ounces of sugar)
• 2 ounces liquid smoke (because I’m not really smoking it)

Curing Method:

1. Mix the water, sugar, salt and liquid smoke in a medium sized mixing bowl
2. Place the pork belly in a gallon zip-log bag or a plastic container with a lid.  Pour as much brine over the meat as will fit in the bag/container.  In a container, you may have to weigh the pork belly down in order for the brine to completely cover the meat.
3. Place in the refrigerator for 72-96 hours.
4. If you’ve put it in a zip lock bag as pictured here, be sure to flip it every day to make sure the pork is fully cured.

See Part II for the smoking directions.

There are many other variations, you can do and I plan on making a spicy bacon one day by adding pepper mash to the curing process.  And for this recipe, just for example, I subtracted the amount of salt, because I thought it was too salty the first couple of times around.  You can make it sweeter by adding more sugar, smokier by adding more liquid smoke, saltier by adding more salt, etc. 

Please check out my webpage at FoodProductLaunch.com.  I’ve always wanted to help people in their quest to get going when it comes to launching and developing recipes for sauces, salsas, dressings and condiments and go from Your Kitchen to the Marketplace. 

Let us help you!

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.