Homecured bacon -> sous vide -> smoke

Hi guys,

First time poster here, and I'm hoping to get your take on my first every bacon cure.

I found a recipe online for curing bacon that seemed fairly straightforward so I thought I'd give it a shot. In the recipe, at the end of the curing, it calls for the bacon to smoked to an internal temp of 150F.

I had an idea where instead of smoking it, I was going to sous vide it for 24 hours at 150F, and then smoke it to get some of that smokey flavor on it. The reason I was thinking of doing this way is I didn't really want to take any chances that I didn't get to 150F (or even overshoot it) as both pieces are different thickness.

My idea was to do:

1. Cure the pork belly for 7 days

2. Rinse, bag and sous vide for 24 hours at 150F

3. Put into an ice bath for 30 mins

4. Pat dry and smoke at 225F for 3 hours (or as long as it takes to develop that smokey exterior)

5. Ice bath again to cool it down and then store it (or slice off a bit and eat some)

Would 3 hours be too long and overcook my bacon? Or is it too little to get any smokey flavor? Am I wasting time and effort doing it this way? I'm also particularly worried about getting sick from botulism or any other pathogens. I never used to worry too much, but now I've got a kid, I'm particularly worried about these things haha.

Anyway, any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advanced, hope you all have been safe out there.

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Comments

FrankM_3301

Your cure step + cook step will take care of potential pathogens. This will be safe, but I am not sure of the advantage you gain. You should get a good thermometer. It will come in handy.

When I do bacon, the traditional way, I can get the correct internal temp (smoking at 225-250F) in 3 - 4 hours. What I worry about with your approach, in addition to it taking much longer, is that you will over cook/dry it out.

If you proceed, you will want to chill it, uncovered in the refrigerator, after the sous vide step so that a pellicile forms. This layer of protein, allows smoke to adhere evenly. Then, since you are already cooked, you might consider cold smoking for a couple of hours...or hot smoking for an hour or less.

I don't use an ice bath after the smoke step. Just wrap well and refrigerate or freeze.

Don't get me wrong, sous vide pork belly can be delicious...but if you are making bacon, the traditional way is more efficient than your process.

carlos.syquia

Hi FrankM! Thank you for your reply!

Good to get your input on this, I guess i will try to just do it the traditional way (cure + smoke). My idea was that I wanted to make sure that I get the correct internal temp.

I noticed that there are some sous vide bacon recipes (on chefsteps and seriousEats) that call for sous vide-ing store bought bacon (that's already been smoked) for overnight or so. Would you have an idea why this sequence of steps wouldn't dry it out as opposed to doing them the a different order (sous vide then smoke)?

FrankM_3301

Maybe "dry it out" was a bad choice of words. The recipes you are referring to use already prepared bacon, then cook it sous vide, then chill, portion, and sear/crisp for service, I believe. The sous vide step will impact the texture in this case. It might be what you are going for, or interested in. It might be interesting to split your belly. Do half the traditional way, and half with the sous vide approach you suggest in your original post. See which one you like better. Again, though, curing bacon is not a high risk situation if you simply follow the steps and use a thermometer. If you do the experiment, I would be interested to hear what you learn. For me, bacon takes long enough as it is. I don't want an extra 24 hour cook step build in, unless the final results are dramatically better.