Bacon Part 2

It's been a while since I've made my own bacon. I picked up a Cabela's meat slicer over the holidays which gave me the excuse to make up a batch. I made two styles; the first is a basic bacon with brown sugar and the second is an Asian-inspired bacon based on the one featured in Chop and Brew episode #2.

Both recipes use the Basic Cure which consists of 1# kosher salt, 8 ounces sugar, and 2 ounces pink salt (Prague powder #1).

Brown Sugar Bacon
The brown sugar bacon recipe is pretty straightforward. The pork bellies I used were about 1.5 pounds each; kind of on the small side, but that's how they come from my local Asian market.

1/8 cup basic cure
1/4 cup brown sugar

Mix basic cure and brown sugar then coat the pork belly. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge and allow it to cure for seven days. It is also a good idea to flip it once a day to ensure the resulting brine is evenly distributed. After 7 days, smoke the bacon (see below).

Asian Bacon
The Asian bacon was marinated/brined for two days then had the basic cure applied for the remaining five days. This one also used a 1.5# belly.

1 quart water
1 c soy sauce
1 c hoisin sauce
1/2 c brown sugar
1 star anise, crushed
4 cloves garlic
1/2 T ground ginger
1/2 T Sriracha sauce
1/8 c basic cure (after brining)

Combine everything but the 1/8 cup basic cure. Brine/marinate the pork belly for 2 days. After two days, remove the belly from the brine and rinse with cold water. Pat dry then apply the basic rub, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for the remaining five days. Same as the brown sugar bacon, remember to flip it daily.

Smoking the Bacon
The first time I tried making bacon, I only cold-smoked it. There's nothing wrong with cold-smoking, but in my opinion it needs to be followed up with hot-smoking to end up with a product that tastes like bacon. I'm not sure exactly what happens, but something definitely happens during the hot-smoking process. If you only cold-smoke you, end up with a weird tasting pork product. For mine, I cold-smoke for about 8-10 hours. then follow it up with a hot smoke (225F) until it reaches an internal temp of 160F.

Before smoking the bacon, unwrap it and rinse well with cold water. This removes excess cure ensuring the final product isn't too salty. Pat dry and place it on a cooling rack and allow it to come to room temp. At this point I cold-smoked mine for about 10 hours.

Right before hot-smoking, I rubbed the brown sugar bacon with more brown sugar. The Asian bacon was rubbed with a combination of brown sugar and red pepper flakes. I cold-smoked with hickory and hot-smoked with a blend of hickory, oak, and cherry.

After hot-smoking, it is time to remove the skin; you can usually pull the skin off as soon as it's cool enough to handle. 

Once cooled, wrap with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to condition for a few days. The conditioning stage isn't absolutely necessary, but I think it allows the smokey character to mellow and penetrate the meat better.

Slicing the Bacon
A meat slicer is the easiest way to slice bacon and will result in the most uniform slices. If you don't have access to one you can still get good results with a good sharp knife. You probably won't be able to get it super thin, but you can get it to about 1/8". In both cases it seems to help if you partially freeze the bacon first. You don't want it to be frozen solid, but it's easier to slice if it's somewhat firm from a good chilling. Slice it to your desired thickness then cook it up in a hot pan and enjoy!

Tasting Notes
Both of the recipes turned out really well. They were eaten up before I even had a chance to snap a picture of the cooked bacon.

As I would expect, the brown sugar version had a noticeable sweetness. It was along the lines of what most people would think of as traditional breakfast bacon, but definitely better than store- bought. We served it with some hashbrowns and eggs and it was scarfed down quickly.

The Asian version was less sweet and preferred by my wife and two older daughters. The marinade flavors were there, but they were subtle. I think I'd leave it in the marinade at least a day longer next time and also increase the star anise and ginger a bit. This one smelled similar to pho soup when it was cooking. We fried it up, chopped it and served it on Chinese chicken salad with manderine oranges.

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Barn Dance Pale Ale

Today I'm brewing a recipe I came up with that should result in a nice hop-focused session style pale ale. This recipe includes several of my favorite hop varieties, one of which is probably my absolute favorite, Amarillo. I'm hoping to get lots of hop flavor and aroma out of this beer with the bitterness being towards the lower end for the style.

I don't think I've ever used the San Diego Super Yeast strain before. My understanding is this is the one used by Stone Brewing in most of their beers. It's supposed to be similar to WLP001; basically a fast and clean fermenting yeast.

Here's the recipe as I'm making it for version 1.0:

5.25# Rahr Pale Malt - 68.3 % 

12.0 oz Briess Caramel Malt - 10L - 9.8 % 

12.0 oz Crisp Maris Otter - 9.8 % 

9.0 oz Briess Cara-Pils/Dextrine - 7.3 % 

6.0 oz Simpsons Golden Naked Oats - 4.9 % 

20.0 g Columbus - Boil 20 min

23.0 g Amarillo - Boil 5 min

11.5 g Chinook - Boil 5 min

1/2t Yeast Nutrient - 5 min

1/2 Whirlfloc - 5 min

1.0 pkg White Labs San Diego Super Yeast WLP090 in 1L starter

46.0 g Amarillo - Dry hop 

23.0 g Cascade - Dry hop

Target OG: 1.046

IBU's: 33.8

Mash at 151F for 60 min. 90 min boil. Ferment at 65F.

Brewing Notes
No real issues to speak of. My gravity came in a tad low at 1.045.

Update 1/10/2014
Gravity has dropped to 1.006...this yeast really is fast. Dry hops were added today. I'll probably pull a sample in a few days and see how it's coming along.

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Tart of Darkness Experiment

As I indicated in a previous post, my brew club recently did a Tart of Darkness clone barrel project. That brew will spend the next 6-12 months in the barrel where bacteria and brett are working away on turning it into a nice sour stout.

Today I'm kicking off an experiment to see if I can do a speedy version of the same beer using the technique that I used for my Berliner Weisse back in April. The BW ended up being one of my favorite brews I've ever made and it finished much faster than most sours so I'm hoping this turns out as well.

The basic process is pitch a lacto starter and give it a seven day head start on the yeast. After seven days I'll pitch Roeselare. I'm hoping to have a decent sour in a couple months. That said, since Roeselare contains pedio, there is a chance this beer could get sick/ropey. If that happens, it'll take a bit longer for this beer to be ready...could be six months or more. Brewing is all about experimenting, so this will be fun even if it doesn't go exactly like I'm hoping it will.

I'm using the same recipe from our brew club except I'll be using aged hops so my IBUs will be close to zero. Another difference, I'm not going to toast the flaked oats like I did for the group brew. Also, I'm not mashing with the flaked oats; instead they'll go in the mash tun at the beginning of the sparge (after mashout). The reason for this is I'm trying to ensure I get some complex starches into the beer for the brett to work on. Lastly, I'm mashing at 155F instead of 158F.

8# 6.9oz Rarh Pale Malt
14 oz Briess Crystal 60L
14 oz Flaked Oats (steep in BK)
6.7 oz Briess Roasted Barley
5.1 oz Briess Chocolate Malt
28.3g Aged debittered hops (60 min)

1 package Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus in 1L starter

1 package Wyeast 3763 Roeselare after 7 days

1/2t Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
Oak cubes in secondary

Mash at 155F for 60 min. 90 min boil. Ferment at 68F

Update 12/27/2013
The brew session went well back on 12/22; no issues, hit the target gravity, pitched at 66F and warmed to 68F overnight. That said, I might have an issue with this beer. The picture of my Berliner Weisse from April shows a nice krausen within 24 hours of pitching. After five days, I still haven't seen any sign of a krausen in the ToD Experiment. This has me a little worried. It's too early to panic, but I think I'll pull a sample before pitching the Roeselare to check the gravity and see how it's progressing. I tasted the starter wort before pitching and it had the same light lemony tartness as the BW starter. The aroma was a little bit different on this one...kind of musty but not smelling like dirty feet or anything like that.

Update 12/30/2013
So some sad news today, I checked on this brew and there were tiny spots of mold starting to grow on top. It never showed any signs of krausen from pitching the lacto. It was definitely mold and not a pellicle. I suspect I got a bad/mishandled lacto culture with limited viability. So essentially the lacto cell count was lower than expected which allowed the mold to take hold and start growing. There was a slight gravity change but there is no detectable sour aroma and only a very, very subtle tartness in the flavor. It was so subtle that I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't looking for it. I've never had mold before. I decided to go ahead and rack from under the the mold rafts and pitch the Roeselare to see what happens. Best case scenario, I'm probably looking at 6-12 months for it to finish; worst case, this will be a dumper.

Update 12/31/2013
Better news today, as usual the Roeselare has taken off like crazy. I added a blowoff this morning to hopefully avoid making a mess. I've heard people comment that Roeselare is a slow starter. I've only experienced that once and I think that was because it was an older sample (6+ months). Every other time I've used it, it has been very active within 24 hours of pitching. It usually calms down after a few days then gets fairly active again after a couple weeks then slows down again for the long haul.

Update 1/12/2014

This one is still slowly chugging along. There are no signs of mold now. The aroma out of the airlock is hints of sourness and malt. I'm looking forward to doing a side by side comparison to the group brew some day.

Update 1/7/2015
I pulled a sample today. This one turned out well with some nice chocolate notes to accompany the mild tartness. It's definitely not as complex as the club version that went into the barrel, but it's pretty good. I think I may add some bourbon soaked oak cubes to try to give it a bit more complexity.

Update 6/2/2015
I added bourbon soaked oak cubes a while back but this beer is still lacking a lot of complexity compared to the group version. Sourness level is fairly low as well. Not a bad beer but knowing how good the group version turned out, this one pales in comparison.

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Red Sauce for Pork Tamales

I love Mexican food and one of my favorite things is pork tamales. I  haven't ever gotten around to making my own tamales from scratch...basically because it's a really long process and I haven't been able to talk my wife into helping me do it. The pork tamales available at Costco are really good (Del Real Foods brand), so I'll have to be satisfied with them for the time being.

What I did decide to do was make up some traditional red sauce from scratch to go with my store-bought tamales. Prep time is a little over an hour, but it's really good and really easy to make. This sauce is a great compliment to tamales and I suspect it could also be really good with some huevos rancheros-style eggs.

Ingredients
15 large dried chilies (I used Guajillo)
5 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons olive oil

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 350.
Remove stems then split peppers in half to remove seeds. Cooking shears work well for this.
Place peppers in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven for 2-3 minutes.
Remove peppers from the oven, place them in a bowl and cover with hot water. Soak them for about 30 minutes.
Transfer peppers, garlic, cumin, salt and about 2.5c of the pepper water to your blender. Blend until smooth.
Next we need to make a roux. Add oil to a 2 quart sauce pan over medium heat. Add flour while stirring and cook until browned. Be sure to stir constantly so as not to burn the flour.
Once the flour is browned, carefully stir in the blended pepper mixture. You might want to pour it through a coarse sieve while adding it to the sauce pan. This will help filter out any small bits of pepper skin, but it's not required.
Simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes then serve over tamales and enjoy.

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Brined Smoked Turkey

Just in time for Thanksgiving, this brine works great for smoking whole turkeys, turkey breasts, and chicken. Brines are great for smoking because they add lots of flavor and help ensure the meat doesn't dry out. I'm not sure of the original source for this recipe, but it's posted on quite a few different recipe sites. I found it a few years ago and it's definitely a crowd favorite. Smaller birds are easier to smoke in a reasonable amount of time, so I'd recommend going with something around 16 pounds or smaller.

Ingredients
2 gallons cold water (see directions below)
1.5 c canning salt *See update below
3 T minced garlic
1 T ground black pepper (preferably freshly ground)
1/4 c Worcestershire sauce
1/3 c dark brown sugar, packed

Directions
24 to 48 hours before smoking, mix all ingredients in a container large enough to hold your turkey. I usually start off with about a gallon of water, add the turkey, then top off with enough water to cover the bird. I tend to go for about 24 hours on mine. Too long in the brine can make the bird too salty. You want the bird to be completely submerged in the brine, so I usually weigh it down with a dinner plate. It probably goes without saying, but put it in the fridge for 24-48 hours.

About an hour before you plan to smoke it, remove the bird from the brine and rinse it with cold water. Pat dry and leave the bird on a wire rack and allow it to come to room temp. That's about all there is to it.  Sometimes I will add a dry rub, but it's not necessary as the bird will have plenty of flavor from the brine. Also, don't stuff it. Smoke with your favorite wood; I usually go with hickory but this year I'm trying a blend of hickory along with some oak from whiskey barrel staves. Smoke until done (breast temp of 160F).

Speaking of temp, in the past I've always smoked the turkey at 225F but this year I'm going to try 325F. That may seem really high, especially to those used to smoking brisket or pork shoulders, but keep in mind turkeys aren't chock full of collagen and connective tissues that benefit from low and slow cooking like some of those other cuts of meat. At a temp of 325F we should get some of the same maillard reactions that we get when brewing beer. It also allows the skin to crisp up which simply won't happen at 225F.

Update 11/29/2013
I used this recipe on a boneless turkey breast yesterday. I put the breast in the brine Tuesday evening and pulled it out Thursday around noon. This is the longest I've tried brining and it ended up being a bit too salty for me. Next time I will brine for a shorter period of time, or reduce the amount of salt, or a little of both. I like the idea of giving the other flavors more time to work their way into the meat, so I might just try cutting the salt in half. Cooking at 325F and removing when the breast hit 160F worked out great. The combination of hickory and oak also worked well.

Update 12/30/2013
I used this brine again a few days ago. I picked up a Cabela's meat slicer over the holidays to use for slicing homemade bacon as well as things like turkey breast for lunch meat. I made this brine again and used it on chicken and turkey breast. I was out of pickling salt so I went with kosher salt. I used about 3/4 cup and brined for 48 hours. This worked out great, so I'd suggest cutting the salt in half if you intend to brine it for more than 24 hours.

Before smoking

Mmmm, hickory and oak smoke

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