Curing and smoking bacon in restaurant

Not me, but I want to.

Heath Dept REALLY wrinkled their nose (but that only made me more convinced to do it).

I'll be watching.

I still need to get up that direction, I like what you're doing there want to taste some food.

Russ;
I'll keep you posted on progress, restaurant construction finally starts Monday. Pic of home cured bacon which is in fridge and tentative beer / spirits menu. Retro pops are TBD yet.

Here is beer menu

Nice logo. Good luck.

Nice beer menu. I haven't had a Strohs or Black Label in 30 years. (grew up in Cleveland)

Shiner Bock in Ohio???

Best of luck on your new endeavor.

Nice beer menu indeed. I like Strohs. Bet Padrefan would enjoy a visit to your place what with his passions for beer tasting.

Thanks guys, appreciate all feedback. Menu should be done in about two weeks, will post. I'll pass all comments over to our beer / bourbon guy. I have my hands full with the kitchen.

quote:

Originally posted by jcohen1005:
I'm considering curing and smoking pork belly's when our restaurant opens later this summer. I'm aware I'll need to develop an HACCP plan for this product, which is doable, just takes some time.

Is anyone curing/smoking bacon, in a commercial environment?

Thanks.

I haven't done bacon at the restaurant yet, but like Okie, I also am considering it. I've cured many pork bellies to make bacon at home, and am comfortable with the process. I think selling the health department is going to be my biggest challenge. Not sure how your curing procedure goes, but mine is 7 days long for curing in fridge, then hanging in room temp open air for 24 to 48 hours prior to smoking. In the past, I would just hand the meat to air dry in my smoker, but I'll need to come up with an alternate at the restaurant. In my area, the HD is known to be tough. 've had good experiences with them though, and I don't want to ruffle an feathers. When I present, I'll be capitalizing on the curing process, and how it renders the meat 100% 'dead'. I'll downplay how it hangs open air. I'm sure a number of us would be interested in your HACCP when approved - if your willing to post it. Are ou using good ole' pink cure #1 or your own salt based ?

I don’t know if this would work for the quantities that you need for the restaurant but you might want to try the recipe. It is getting around the open air drying and might be easier to get the HACCP approval.

Use basic dry cure page 39 from Charcuterie
Instruction for bacon pages 42-43 in Charcuterie

Cut Pork Belly in two to have two pieces between 4 and 5 lbs.

I use vacuum seal bags to avoid having something leak and it makes it easier but you can also use other bags or containers.
Use about 1/4 cup of the basic dry cure per bag. Rub it all over the meat or shake it with the meat in the bag so that the meat gets covered.
Add 1/2 cup maple syrup per bag. Seal bag after vacuuming most of the air out but not have the bag too tight around the meat.
Leave in the cure 10 days. Turn bag over once a day. (Check for firmness to determine it is ready to be taking out).
Rinse and dry with paper towel, keep covered overnight in the fridge.
Smoke in 200 degrees oven till internal temp of 150 degrees.

I'll be happy to report progress, thanks for comments.
Here is pic of first attempt at bacon.

Looks real good to me. Nice job.

If it tastes as great as is looks you have a winner. Nice job.

Thanks Pags / Maria-Anne

Guys, I know this post is nearly a year old, but it caught my attention. Located in the country, way out in the county, I'm trying to figure out how to put up a small cut and wrap/smoke and cure and charcuterie plant on my property with resale capabilities. I can get my free range pigs slaughtered and halved at a USDA plant and do the rest of the processing myself, to include my own bacon and such. By not doing the actual slaughter at my place would keep it from being a meat processing plant, but Who knows.

Just a thought. Most of the Regs are surrounding the curing issue. Why not serve 'uncured' bacon. Use celery powder extract instead of sodium nitrite and the USDA considers it 'no nitrates added' and therefore many of the regs do not apply. Now, truth be know, the celery powder extract has about the same amount of nitrites in it, but since it's 'naturally occurring' I think there may be a loophole. Anyone looked at that route? I guess if I crack this code, I'll have to change our name to 'uncured porkbelly farm'

Ok, sorry to 'hog' the thread, but I just got my first batch of bellies and deli ham back from our meat processer and Yuck!!!!!!! The deli ham is mealy with no hint of smoke or even salt. It resembles canned chicken. This is an absolute assault on our fine animals. Secondly, the bacon is tastes fine, but is so full of moisture from the vacuum tumbling brine/pump method that it pops and cracks in the skillet and shrivels and curls beyond recognition. This is absolutely opposite from my self-cured products I did with our last pig. I've asked the plant manager to call me to see if we can work toward a solution. I'd really like to cure mine myself for retail resale. I called about 20 different numbers today from the USDA and Oklahoma Dept of Ag. I'm waiting on calls back.

unlike most of you folks on this thread, I don't have a commercial kitchen, so I have four courses of action, listed in their order of favor.
1. Buy a Food trailer made out like a moble kitchen, strong on refrigeration, freezers, sinks and workspace and with a fEC 500 hanging out the back.
2. Remodel my newly acquired (yet rundown) shop building. It has water (from an untested well) and septic and 200 amp service and is on our land. Probably looking at 25k to get it in shape to pass anyone's inspection.
3. Build a new small plant on our property. We can use our existing well and put in an additional septic. With all equipment, will probably be 100k or so.
4. Purchase some place in town and work to remodel it.

Again, I'm long on ideas and short on money, but can't stand to raise 'the bacon breed' without great bacon. Any suggestions or Haccp plans you have would be appreciated.

Do you have any places down there that rent space in a commercial kitchen? Lot's of places up here do that? Any established mom n pop restaurants, bars with a kitchen, VFW's, etc.? Ask them if they'd rent it out to you on occasion. Once you start selling out and living 'high on the hog' you can start building your own place.

We rented out our kitchen at the Blue Lodge to a local caterer for a year or so until they got their food truck done. They also had time to remodel there basement as there prep kitchen and it passed inspection with a few tweaks. They worked with the local food inspector from the beginning. Kind of a hassle but if you bring them in from the start it helps in the end.

Not an expert by any means, but all your choices look iffy ultimately cost-wise except 3 or 4, which appear to have solid outcomes. Based on a similar circumstance, suggest you carefully consider the opportunities and costs of those two options. If it were me, I'd do on-site if possible just for convenience and trying to keep some sort of normal life. My $.02.

OK Chaplain, gotta ask, what is this "pay as they grow" program that's listed a few posts up? Checked your website but your two "click here" links don't work. Do I get to pay you to raise a delicious pig for me that I then get to eat??? If so, how about some more details, either here or PM me. I'm somewhat intrigued.

quote:

Originally posted by AndyJ:
OK Chaplain, gotta ask, what is this "pay as they grow" program that's listed a few posts up? Checked your website but your two "click here" links don't work. Do I get to pay you to raise a delicious pig for me that I then get to eat??? If so, how about some more details, either here or PM me. I'm somewhat intrigued.

Me too! Maybe AndyJ and I can split bigwheel?!

I never thought of the copacker idea. The problem with that is I have to find someone with a smoker. I don't think I have a chance at Rib Crib but There is one meat store in town, but I don't know if he smokes meats. Maybe I could pay him in pigs, I'll certainly have enough of them running around.

It's worth a shot. I could get six pigs done and do 12 hams and 12 sides, cure them in meat lugs, hang them in his walk in for a couple of weeks then smoke n. slice them up. I'd just have to be careful that no one steals my ham and tries to 'hock' it.

Yes guys, we're just getting started and just put the website up as a place holder.

The pay as they grow program is designed to help a family work a whole (or half) pig into their grocery budget. They put a down payment about six months out from slaughter and then a monthly payment which estimates the hanging weight of the animal. We balance at slaughter, as I bring the animal to the packing house and they pay for the customized butchering. I'm learning fast to take a deposit on everything. I had one piglet customer back out. But I've still got six sold.

This marketing is what's killing me. We've got our USDA label back and a freezer full of pork USDA Certified Tamworth Pork that we need to sell, but a little clueless on how to do it. Currently it's just word of mouth now and craigslist stuff and I'm afraid I'll be hurt by substandard bacon this go around. I've decided not to sell the deli ham and will just take the loss on it. The bright side is that, in the pig business, I can always eat my mistakes.





If you guys want more info, see my facebook page (link is good on the website), as I'm more active on there.

By the way, I don't know if you guys saw Fast Eddy's post today (on FB I think) about the charcuterie class, but I'm going to hit it up next time it gets back to KC. Sounds like a winner.

Bill, let's start a new thread. I think you adventure will be a good read but it's a different issue enough to warrant its own thread. Your talking about a commercial operation vs. a restaurant and a local HD.

Sorry your first batch wasn't good, sounds like you really have a good thing going on the farm.

Ok folks, back to the Curing and Smoking Bacon (and ham) in a restaurant issue. As I stated I have mushy bacon and ham from our processer who pumps and vacumn tumbles. So My current course of action is to find a local restaurant and copack my Tamworth fresh ham and pork bellies. I've found a local BBQ joint and the owner is very excited. He knows the county inspecter who eats there all the time and loves his restaurant. He's never had any defeciencies. I've talked to the inspector, who referred me to her state supervisor. I sent her my requirements for copacking brief and so far bottom line is I think we can do it with two issues. 1) Utilize dry bags (airflow dry-cure bags) for the product while drying and after smoking while equalizing. 2) use celery juice power to cure with instead of commercial cure. More to follow, I should hear back from her tomorrow. Also, it looks like I can do it in a food trailer also. More to follow but restaurant owners, any thoughts?

Ok, just heard from the training director for food service for the state. She is going to approve the process without variance if we don't use commercial cures and stick only with the celery juice powder thing and don't utilize reduced oxygen packaging (vacuum sealing). at any point in the process to include packaging for retail customers. She also said that because of the water weight loss (over 30 percent by weight) for my bacon and ham, it may qualify as a 'non-perishable' food and then it could be vacuum sealed after it hits that dryness level. I have to get hold of O.U. and get some water testing done on my product. I of course have to use a DHEC kitchen and go thru some sort of class and have the process entered into the records at the county level, but so far so good. This is until the USDA decides to wake up one day and realize that the celery juice powder has more nitrates in it than the commercial cure and starts regulating that.

Ok, just heard from OU AG Jason Young, who verified the process was good and needed no variance or HAACP plan. He said we could also use the drybags if we wanted, but they are expensive.