How to make bacon

Making bacon requires 6 steps:

1. Material selection: Select qualified medium-fat white pigs and hang them for pre-cooling.

(1) Material selection parts: ① The large bacon blank is taken from the middle section of the whole pig carcass with skin (white meat), that is, the front end is cut off from the third rib, and the rear end is cut from the sacral and coccygeal vertebrae. Cut off in between, and then cut off the breast; ② There are two types of bacon and breast bacon, skinned and peeled. Cut off the front end from the fifth rib of the white striped meat, and cut off the back end from the last two sacral vertebrae, and remove the breast. Then cut it into two parts 13 to 14 inches away from the back. The upper part is the bacon blank, and the lower part is the milk bacon blank.

(2) Fat thickness standard: The thickest part of large bacon is 3.5~4.0cm, the thickest part of bacon is 2.5~3.0cm, and the thickest part of milk bacon is about 2.5cm. .

2. Preliminary shaping: Trim the blank so that the four sides are basically straight and uniform, and trim the psoas muscle and diaphragm.

3. Pickling Keep the pickling room temperature at 0~2℃.

(1) Dry curing Sprinkle salt (add 1% NaNO3) on the surface of the meat and rub it with your hands to make sure it is even and thorough. Add about 100g of large bacon to each piece of meat and double it with salt, then spread it out in an impermeable shallow dish and marinate for 24 hours.

(2) Soak the dry-cured meat with salt liquid with a density of 1.125~1.135 (Bome 16~17°) (each 100kg of liquid contains NaNO3370g). The amount of salt solution is about 1/3 of the meat weight. The soaking time is related to the thickness of the meat and the temperature, usually about 2 weeks. During the flooding period, the tank needs to be turned over 3 to 4 times. Its purpose is to change the pressured parts of the meat and loosen the meat tissue to speed up the penetration, diffusion and color development of salt and make the saltiness of the marinade even.

4. Soaking and cleaning: Soak the marinated meat in clean water at about 25°C for 3 to 4 hours. The purpose is: ① to increase the temperature of the meat, make the meat soft, and dissolve the oil on the surface, making it easier to Clean and scrape; ② There will be no "salt flowers" on the surface after being smoked and dried, which improves the aesthetics of the product; ③ After softening, it is easier to debone and shape.

5. Deboning, scraping, and reshaping. The requirements for deboning bacon are very high. Only the tip of the knife is allowed to cut the periosteum on the bone surface, and then gently remove it by hand. The tip of the knife must not pierce the muscle, otherwise water will invade and it will not be able to withstand preservation. Shaving is the process of shaving off the remaining hair and oil on the skin. Because the shape of the meat is changed due to marinating and stacking, it needs to be reshaped to make the four sides straight. At this point, you can string, hang, drain, and smoke after 6 to 8 hours.

6. Smoking: The room temperature of smoking is generally maintained at 60~70℃, which lasts about 8 hours. The production rate is about 83%.

If stored, it should be packed in white wax paper or thin nylon bags. Without packaging, hanging or spreading flat, it can generally be stored for 1 to 2 months, 1 week in summer.