Making bacon

While I was on a pig processing frenzy I made bacon from some belly we have in the freezer from our pigs.

Quite a few bacon recipes have the meat in a large amount of salt, the bacon done like this will keep well, but it will also be very salty. This recipe uses 3% of the weight of the meat which looks like an unlikely small anount of salt, this bacon will come out similar in saltiness to bacon you buy from the butcher.

3kg pork belly (in a number of pieces, I did 1kg pieces)

90g salt

50g brown sugar

2 tsp white pepper

6 cloves

Pinch of rosemary

Rub the salt mix in to the pork and put the pieces stacked in a large bag.

Leave in the fridge for 5 days, each day restack and slosh the liquid around so each one has a go sitting in the liquid that forms.

Hang overnight and then slice and freeze (or just eat the lot!)

I also made bacon from the back of the mini pig and a little bit from the belly. The belly was too skinny really but the back stuff was good.