Bacon Cure Recipe

Today we’re going to make a bacon cure and learn about prague powder #1.

Recipe:

Salt: 2%
Curing Salt/Prague Powder #1: .25%
Brown Sugar: 1%
Black Pepper: .6%
Granulated Garlic: .25%
Granulated Onion: .25%
Paprika: .07%
Red Pepper Flakes: .25%
Crushed Garlic
Bay Leaves

When building any rub or cure, I go by weight, not volume, because I want to be able to replicate the exact recipe every single time I make it. It’s very easy to scale the recipe up or down when you go by weight.

I start by weighing the pork belly and consider that 100% weight. All other ingredients are a percentage of that weight.

The most important ingredients you’ll add to your bacon cure are salt and prague powder #1, which is also known as pink curing salt. Salt is just sodium chloride and we’ll add 2% salt of that. . Prague powder is 93.75% sodium chloride and 6.25% sodium nitrite and we add .25% of it. It also has red dye coloring so you don’t mistake it for regular salt. Look for a prague powder that only has those 3 ingredients. There shouldn’t be any other ingredients listed. I found this one from Boise Salt to be a good deal. This little packet is good for about 100 pounds or 45kg of meat.

Another big reason why I go by weight of ingredients instead of volume is that too much sodium nitrite can be toxic. So, make sure you use exactly .25% of it by weight.

You actually don’t need to use curing salt when making bacon, but I do because I like the flavor, color, texture, food safety, and increased preservation qualities it provides. You could also use celery powder which includes nitrates, but it’s more difficult to get an exact amount of nitrates than with prague powder.

After you add your salt and prague powder, you can add whatever ingredients you like. I’ve included all the ingredients here for you to screenshot and they are also in the description.

Stay tuned for the full bacon video coming soon.

#bacon #cooking #howto #recipe