If you make your own bacon, or process your own hogs, you likely know how incredible homemade bacon is. A while ago, during the pandemic when hogs were a dime a dozen, I got the chance to butcher two whole pigs with my father and some friends, and before I did, I made sure to ask all my chef and butcher friends what sort of cuts they’d like to take if they were cutting up their own pig.
I got a lot of great ideas, a few new ones that I’ll be sharing with you, but one of my favorite suggestions came from my friend Mathew Normansell of edenwildfood.com a British citizen who moved to Wisconsin a few years ago. Mathew mentioned English bacon or British back bacon, and, DIY bacon afficionado that I am, I knew I had to make some.
Removing the section of spine after smoking.
So how’s British style bacon different from regular bacon? A quick google will show you plenty of pictures, and, with a rudimentary knowledge of the parts of the pig you’ll be able to see where the cut comes from.
A finished slice after smoking. Note the nice layer of fat on top. With a scalded pig this will be a lot more fatty.
Americans style bacon (also called streaky bacon) is made from the pork belly. English bacon is a hybrid. If you look at some of the pictures online, it might seem to resemble thinly sliced pork chops, and that’s exactly what it is.
English bacon is made from the loin, but not the trimmed, fat-less loins or boneless chops you’ll see in the supermarket, it’s made from a loin with the fat cap still attached. This gives it a nice combination of fat-to meat, although it will always be a little more lean than American bacon.
So, how’s it eat? Pretty darn good. It’s a little like if you crossed Canadian bacon with American bacon, since there’s much more fat than typical Canadian bacon, but a little less than American.
Either way, it’s cured, smoked pork, it’s delicious, and it’ll make all the things taste better. As a bonus, I smoke mine with the spine still attached so that I could remove it to get a bonus soup out of the deal when everything was said and done.
Cooks up just like any other bacon, with a little less rendered fat, of course.
How to cut it
The hand is holding the belly, still attached to the loin. The blue square outlines the rib-less section of the loin that will be your English bacon. Photo taken from a video by Bon Apetit.
This is the only tricky part, especially if you’re new to hog butchery. Here’s how I did it, step by step. Also, if you need a refresher, this video tutorial on whole pig butchery is the best I’ve ever seen.
- Skin the hog, then hang it up by it’s back feet on a skidloader, a tree, etc
- Using a reciprocating saw, cut the animal in half through the spine
- Lay the hog half, cut side up on a table
- Remove the shoulder at the joint
- Remove the leg at the joint
- Remove the belly in one piece, cutting in half with a handsaw for a straight cut
- Take the loin and find where the rib bones end (it should be about 1/3 of the whole loin)
- Remove the rib-less 1/3 of the loin—this is your English bacon
- Cut the rest of the loin with ribs into pork chops
- Rub the rib-less loin all over with the bacon cure, wait 6-7 days, smoke, cool, portion, freeze, and, pig out!
Traditional use
As Mathew explained to me, proper bacon is an important part of a full English breakfast, along with fried tomatoes, beans, eggs, and black pudding. If you don’t have time to throw down for the whole English breakfast, it’s fine on it’s own with some eggs and toast, or in a bacon sandwich like a BLT.
English Bacon
Equipment
- Smoker
Ingredients
- 1 rib-less pork loin roast about 3-4 pounds, including the fat cap
- 8 oz brown sugar
- 4 oz kosher salt
- 10 grams or 1.5 teaspoons pink salt sodium nitrite
- 1/2 tsp whole cloves
- ½ tsp whole allspice
- 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Instructions
- Combine the spices and grind to a fine powder in a spice grinder, then mix with the salt, pink salt, and sugar.
- Stand the pork roast up so that the fat cap is facing up. Score the fat ¼ inch deep in a cross-hatch pattern, then flip over and cut next to the bone/spine a bit as if you were going to start removing the bone. Follow the bone with a paring knife, revealing an inch or two in, to make it easier for the cure to absorb, and to give you an outline of where to cut to remove the bone when the “bacon” is done smoking.
- Rub the meat liberally with the cure, getting into all the nooks and crannies, then put in a zip loc bag or vacuum seal and refrigerate for 5 days, turning occasionally to distribute the juices.
- After 5 days, remove the pork from the liquid, rinse, pat dry, then refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight, uncovered, which will help it form a skin that will absorb smoke, known as the pellicle.
- Smoke the loin, fat side up at 225 for 3 hours, or until lightly browned and fully cooked (145-150F)* then cool, cut off the bone, slice, portion, vacuum seal and freeze or refrigerate until needed.
That sounds delicious but that’s not how british bacon is made. You almost had it though. British back bacon is cured just like you described but is lightly cold smoked instead of hot smoked. Then we broil it or roast in the oven on lo until the fat crisps turning half way through. Then put on white bread (tomato and lettuce if your posh)ketchup and brown sauce (broadly similar to steak sauce). Man I miss a good english bacon sandwich. I think I’m gonna go ahead and make your recipe but cold smoked
In the scheme of things I thought it was close enough. I sent some to my friend from Britain and he was pleased.
Oh don’t get me wrong I wasnt criticising.just spreading knowledge. I actually just ordered a loin in order to do your recipe.
That is not English bacon or anything close. This is American bacon (cooked through *before* slicing). I’m sure it’s delicious but could you edit out the word “English”?
Confusing the two is a potentially dangerous idea as actual English bacon is not edible until cooked and needs handling like the raw meat that it is..
Thank you! Great website 🙂
Hendrik, thanks for commenting,
So, another way to look at this post is as a suggestion for homecooks, chefs, and hunters with access to sub-primal cuts to do something different and creative with a cut of meat they may not have thought of before. You’re right, English bacon isn’t fully cooked, and I note that in the recipe, but saying it isn’t anything close to English bacon is a stuffy, puritanical view, and the suggestion of it being dangerous is silly. Trichinosis in American farmed pork coming in at 16 cases a year as of 2020 (via CDC) is a danger from my Grandmother’s era, not ours (wild hogs are a different story). Heritage pork is wonderful cooked to 140-145 F, and that temperature is ample to kill and sterilize food from trich (hunters in the U.S. use the method to sterilize bear meat and consume it medium-rare-ish).
Another benefit is bringing awareness to Anglo-saxon cuts and butchery styles. Since I posted this last year, 15K people in the U.S. alone (many of whom probably didn’t know there was such a thing as this), have now heard of it. I may take some small creative liberties here and there, but they’re well intended. The name stays. 🙂
I’ve enjoyed full English breakfasts for years in the UK. When living in Switzerland, I would “smuggle” Greenback and Regular back bacon into Geneva. I enjoyed both regular (smoked). Have also done my own bacon through dry cure and smoke, one cold smoked and once hot smoked. Prefer cold smoked and will do the same with your recipe. Looks very good, thanks.
Best alternative to Canadian back bacon
Excellent little piece of charcuterie
I hadn’t heard of English bacon but here I am making it a second time. After reading comments I can’t wait to try with ‘brown gravy’. This time I am using a pork butt trimmed just to see if it throws a little ham flavor in. I figure pig + smoke = can’t go wrong. Thanks for the fun and tasty recipe!
Glad it worked for you Mark. That’s great to hear. Now I’m googling brown gravy.
I am very confused with all this.
I am referring here to both curing and smoking, both of which I have done several times with good results.
However, and in my humble view both ‘Britsh’ style gammon and bacon are ALWAYS cooked before being eaten, usually fried in a frying pan.
I much prefer my bacon and gammon smoked so then my question is,
In all the recipies I have seen which involve smoking it’s mentioned to smoke until the internal temperature is in the region of 145-150F. I think this tempedrature assumes fully cooked but why, since the gammon/bacon is always fried and therefore cooked again ?.
In the case of British style gammon, how to smoke it WITHOUT actually cooking it ?. So it’s similar to the ‘raw’ smoked gammon available at most British supermarkets.
My smoker is the hot type which uses wood and to achieve the 145-150F normally takes 9-13 hours with the cuts of pork I use. Of course this is fine for smoked hams which are meant to be fully cooked but not for bacon and gammon.
Can anyone help ?. A quick mail to [email protected] would be welcome.
Thanks in advance,
Tony.
Hey Tony, you have a few options here. You can cold smoke it, which will leave it raw. Personally, I like it hot smoked to 145F and then warmed up to crisp it a bit before eating. If you smoke it and bring the temp to 145F or so it’s also wonderful just sliced after it’s cooled and eaten as ham. It’s pretty simple, really.