Home Made Canadian Bacon
Today we are using the equilibrium method to dry cure Canadian Bacon. Instead of just doing one flavor, we are making two separate styles - Maple and Honey Maple! Equilibrium cure is super easy, and allows us to have perfectly repeatable results every time! Once these are cured, we are smoking them to temp on our pellet smoker. Easy to do at home, and so much better than store bought! Sound good? lets get started...
YouTube Instructional: https://youtu.be/MSbarbf82EM
Ingredients:
Pork Loin (I used appx 5 lbs)
Salt (1.75% of meat weight)
Pink Cure Salt #1 (.25% of meat weight)
Honey Granules (1% of meat weight)
OR
Honey Granules (.5% of meat weight)
Maple Sugar (.5% of meat weight)
Step 1: Trim and weigh the Pork Loin
Trim off any excess fat and then weigh the pork loin. We will use the meat weight to calculate our ingredients
Step 2: Weigh out dry ingredients
Using the percentages listed above, weigh out your dry ingredients. Converting everything to grams makes things a lot easier. Mix together thorougly.
Step 3: Coat the pork in the dry rub
Use all of the weighed out dry rub and completely cover the pork loan. Place in a vacuum seal bag.
Step 4: Vac and Cure
Vacuum seal the meat and then move it to your fridge.
You want to allow the meat to completely cure. Time for this depends on the thickness of the meat. The rule of thumb is appx. a full day per 1/4 inch of the meat, and then 2 extra days. For example, this is about 2 inches thick, so 8 days + 2 = 10 days to cure.
Flip in the fridge daily.
Step 5: Test the meat
After your meat is cured, remove it from the vac bags. Cut off a small piece and fry it. We are looking to make sure the flavor is where we want it. If its too salty, you can submerge the meat in half an hour increments to draw out some of the sodium. If you need more sodium, add it and then re-seal for a day.
Once you are happy with the flavor, preheat your smoker to 180 degrees
Step 5: Smoke the meat
Smoke at 180 degrees until the internal is appx 145 degrees - appx 4 hours
Let them cool off completely.
These slabs are now cured and smoked. Cut off slices and fry as you would any bacon.
Enjoy!
