Pork Butt Bacon w/Recipe

I decided to try my hand at making pork butt bacon. I read about the Hi Mountain cure on several posts here, but with shipping, that product costs about $15 for what seems to be about a dollar's worth of salt and sugar. I also tried to find Morton's Tender Quick, but no luck in any local supermarket. After a little searching, I came up with the following cure recipe:

1 teaspoon Insta Cure
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup salt

This makes enough cure for a 4-6 pound pork butt. Insta Cure is also known as prague powder or pink salt, and it is a mixture of one part sodium nitrite to 15 parts salt. I bought a pound from a guy on eBay for $9, including shipping. That's enough for over 500 pounds of bacon. You have to be careful with this stuff because it is poison in relatively small doses. An ounce has nearly enough sodium nitrite to kill someone.

I started with two butts/shoulders in a bag from Costco. I took one butt out, put on my favorite cajun rub, and tossed it in the smoker to make pulled pork. I cut the other butt in half horizontally to make two slabs about two inches thick. I slathered boths slabs in cure and put them in ziplock freezer bags, then dumped the bags into the meat drawer of our spare fridge.

I turned the bags over every day or so. After five days a half cup or so of liquid had collected in each bag, and I added about a quarter cup of pure maple syrup to each bag to try to get some maple flavor going.

After 12 days, I dumped out the accumulated liquid and syrup, and put in a couple cups of fresh cool water, then back in the fridge. I drained that water out after a half hour and replaced it with more fresh water. I left the butts in plain water in the fridge for another day to take out more of the salt.

I removed the butts from the bags, dried them off, and then set them in front of a fan to try to get a pellicle going. I didn't really notice much of a change after sitting in front of the fan for an hour, so I'll probably skip that step next time.

I then put the butts into my smoker with a couple ounces of maple wood at 225 degrees. I intended to smoke for four hours or until the meat reached 140 degrees, but I fell asleep and when I woke up the meat had cooked for six hours, and was at 170. Not a disaster, since I cook pulled pork to 195 degrees, but I'll try to keep it to 140 next time and see how it affects the flavor and texture.

I took the meat out of the smoker, let it rest a half hour and then put it back in the fridge. Next morning, I put one of the butts in the freezer, and cut into the other one to try it out. Please note that the way I cut the meat in the picture is exactly wrong by 90 degrees -- as explained below, you want to cut against the grain of the meat.

Anyway, I fried up a slice in a pan on the stove and tasted it. I'd say it had maybe a 70% bacon, 30% ham taste, and the texture was a little chewy. The salt level was perfect to my taste. The maple syrup flavor was extremely faint; if I didn't know it was there, I probably wouldn't taste it. Next time I'll probably leave it out of the curing process and put some on the outside during the smoking process.

Next day, I cut the bacon on the bias (so the grain of the meat is perpendicular to the blade of the knife) and cooked it on the grill. NOW WE'RE TALKIN!!!! The grill brought out a lot more of the bacon flavor, and and cutting on the bias got rid of all the chewiness of the first slice. This made what is probably the best BLT sandwiches I have ever had! Plus I've still got another pound in the fridge, and two pounds in the freezer.

Here's a start to finish photo history of my first experience making pork butt bacon.