pork a palooza--updated

[brew]

went friday to cash & carry and bought 20 pounds of pork bellies ( $1.98/lb) and 55 pounds of pork shoulders .  Took one of the shoulders and turned it upside down and cut it about 3" thick and brined it for bacon as well for experimental reaons along with the bellies...thats 25 lbs of bacon brining in the fridge.  Took 30 pounds of the shoulders and ground that up into breakfast sausage (recipie here on the site that uses buttermilk)--fried some up this morning and it is awesome.  I have a 1 hp cabela's carnivore grinder and it took just over 3 minutes to coarse grind the shoulders..seasoned the meat then ran it through the fine plate and put it in 1 lb bags and taped it.  Took the remaining meat and cubed it and will pressure can it next week with onions, carrots and potatoes for stew (will update you on that).  took all nite to do it and clean up but was o.k. cuz watched the Huskies throttle Utah with plenty of busch pounders and a couple cans of Grizzly.  will try to attach pics but for some reason my confuser won't allow me to do it on this thread

[brew]

breakfast sausage

[Timberstalker]

Looks damn good. Thanks for sharing.

[slowhand]

 
Very cool!
Thanks for sharing

[Bill W]

let us know what bacon recipe you used and how it turns out.

[brew]

for the bacon cure the best stuff i've used (and used again on 4 of the 5 pieces i had until I ran out) was BuckBoard Bacon Cure i got from Cabela's.  It has the directions in it for the amount to use per pound of meat...i think it is around 1 TBSP and 1 and 1/4 TSP per pound.  I also added about 1/2 cup of brown sugar per slab.  I ran out of that and used a recipie off you tube that i've used before which is 1 and 1/2 TSP of pink salt (nitrates) and a cup of Sea salt and a cup of brown sugar per 5 pound slab. put all that in a ziplock bag in the fridge and turn over every 2 days.  after about 10 days rinse the slabs off well (some sites call for submerging it in water for 2 hours but I just rinsed it really well) then set it out at room temp for about 2 hours to "bloom".  I then put them in the smoker at around 150 degrees for 2-3 hours.  Ran them through the slicer and then vac sealed them.  One big thing i found out when cooking them because they are mostly meat and not fat is to not overcook them--if you think they are about done take them off the heat cuz they are ready.  I had one batch come out a little salty but what i did was to take the slices and rinse them off again in cold water, pat them dry before i cooked them.  Making your own bacon is really easy and you can do it for only a couple bucks per pound

[brew]

so bacon was brining for 8 days and took it out this past Sunday.  Patted the bellies dry and let the sit at room temp for about 2 hours.  put them in my bradley smoker with just the smoke generator going for about 2 hours with hickory.  put them back into the fridge and sliced them up tonight.  took them when i got home from work and put them in the freezer to firm them up for a couple hours before we put them through the slicer--i've found the colder the bellies the easier they run through the slicer.  fried some of the Buckboard Bacon Cure that i added about 1/2 cup of brown sugar per belly and it tasted outstanding.  you really don't want to overcook it as the sugars will burn quickly--if you think it's about done it is.  i added a pic of the pork shoulders i brined up into bacon along with the bellies...25 lbs of sliced bacon--gonna vac pac them tomorrow.  gonna take the othe pork chunks and pressure can them up into stew in the next few days

[Bill W]

you should bring that slicer over here.  I'm using a ruler and knife method.

[Dan-o]

That bacon looks great!

[brew]

yeah Bill i owe you for taking me out duck hunting a couple years ago...that slicer i bought from the bargain cave in Cabelas over here some years back--i normally don't buy anything from that expensive a$$ store but i think i only paid 50 bucks for it cuz it had a small dent in it.  i've sliced a hell of a lot of meat with that thing over the years...good luck with the bird hunting this year

[brew]

finally finishing up my big pork fest...took a break from hunting today to pressure can some pork stew.  cubed and seasoned the pork.  put it in quart jars and added onions, potatoes, celery, carrots and a bit of garlic then topped it off with beef broth.  did 28 quarts...that should last us through the winter...all we need to do for dinner is heat it up.  here is a before pic

[Bill W]

yeah Bill i owe you for taking me out duck hunting a couple years ago...that slicer i bought from the bargain cave in Cabelas over here some years back--i normally don't buy anything from that expensive a$$ store but i think i only paid 50 bucks for it cuz it had a small dent in it.  i've sliced a hell of a lot of meat with that thing over the years...good luck with the bird hunting this year

I have a friend with a slicer.  I may have to get him to dig it out.    Took me a while to figure out which duck trip you were referring to.   That was my last trip into the Winchester quality hunt area over here.  I gave up on that area after that.  My third batch of bacon starts on Saturday.  My wife brought back a pork belly from her trip to Costco in Seattle.