I ordered 4 oz of pink curing salt and it was $9. I still have to buy the pork belly. I think it'll cost more making it homemade, but heard it's well worth it.


http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/curing-salt

The best thing I can say is since I started making my own, I literally haven't bought bacon since. It's cost effective, depending on how much you're paying for pork belly. I get mine for about $2.20 per pound. But what I like most is having the choice to cut it as thick or thin as I want. There is no treat more fantastic than homemade bacon lardons.

I used brown sugar as part of the cure.

If you think it's better than maple, I'll try the brown.


Did you use light or dark?

I liked the maple, but I didn't feel like the cost of maple justified the very faint maple flavor. I've used white sugar spiked with Grade B maple syrup, maple sugar, and brown sugar, and brown is my favorite. I used dark brown.

Thanks for the info. I'd planned to do this earlier in the (last) year, but something came up. It looks like I'll want to find a good price on the salt before trying it.

By salt, I presume you meant to say the pork belly. Try the meat market in a local grocery store. I get mine from Publix, which is the only place I can get it without ordering from a butcher (who wants to charge me 4x the price).

Could be salt. Because I paid $9, can you find it somewhere cheaper than $9 FMB?



I ordered it from that link I just posted.

I bought a pound for $13.50 from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1). Didn't really get worried about the cost because a pound will be more salt than I can use in 10 years when you use one teaspoon at a time.

It was the salt. I like $13.50 a pound a lot better than I like $9 for a quarter pound. Part of this, for me, is to make it at least a somewhat cost effective alternative to the crappy stuff we're now spending $4 and more a pound on, so every bit helps.

Yeah I sorta blew it :-(

Nah..... First time is usually the learning time, and those things matter less. I'm just trying to get a head start and get right to it, because I really don't like the direction food prices have been going.


I was going to corn some briskets. I took one look at the price of the briskets, laughed, and decided that I'd stick with the commercially made corned beefs for about 1/3-1/4 the price.

So I'm making bacon again, but I'm going to take part of this 12-pound belly and not cure/smoke it.

Any ideas for what to do with pork belly besides make it into bacon?

Has anybody used raw sugar in the cure? I think that would be a good in a cure?

How about peppered bacon?

Pancetta, it is cured but not smoked.