Homemade Beef Bacon
A dry-cured and smoked beef belly recipe you can use in place of pork bacon or lardons. Makes about 4 lbs of finished bacon.
Servings: 16 servings
Calories: 161kcal
Cost: 50
Equipment
- 1 latex gloves
- 1 Large food safe container
- 1 Vacuum sealer
Ingredients
- 5 lbs beef belly or brisket
- 6 oz dark brown sugar *see note
- 3 ounces kosher salt or fine salt
- 3 grams pink curing salt (~1 teaspoon) also known as instacure no#1
- ⅛th teaspoon cloves
- ⅛th teaspoon allspice
- ⅛th teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 2 ice cubes optional
Instructions
Cure the Beef
- Lightly toast the spices in a pan on medium heat until aromatic-a minute or two. Combine the ingredients for the cure and mix well, taking a moment to enjoy the aroma of spices as you do.
- Measure out half of the cure (4.5 oz) and reserve for another batch. This might seem silly but it's difficult to make a very small batch of cure.
- Put the beef belly or brisket into a large container. Wearing gloves, massage the meat with the cure for 5 minutes, rubbing it into all the nooks and crannies. It may not seem like a lot, but the cure is powerful stuff.
- Put the beef into a large vacuum bag, scraping up any cure left in the container and vacuum seal. Add a couple ice cubes to the bag to help create a brine. Refrigerate for 10 days, massaging the meat in the bag to help create a thick brine slurry.
Soak and Dry the Beef
- Remove the meat from the bag and soak in lukewarm water for 5 minutes, rubbing with your hands to remove any salt and sugar from all sides.
- Pat the meat dry, then refrigerate overnight.
Smoking
- Smoke the beef bacon at 300F until 150F in the center, which should take about 3 hours, but results can vary due to your smoking set up. Remove from the smoker and cool, then chill completely before slicing. You can also smoke it at 225 F for a longer period of time, around 4-5 hours.
- Don't overthink the smoking part of the recipe-all you need to do is cook the bacon until it's hot throughout. A higher temperature smoke will give a richer color and cook faster, but a lower temperature will work ok too.
Storing
- For storing, cut thick, ½ inch slices of beef bacon and lay them on pieces of parchment, vacuum seal and freeze.
Video
Notes
Sweetener
Adding a proportion of molasses or maple syrup adds a good flavor and helps distribute the cure evenly. It can be substituted for all or part of the sugar by weight.Massaging the meat
Taking the meat out of the fridge for 20 minutes before you massage it in the bag will help speed the process of creating the brine.Nutrition
Serving: 30g | Calories: 161kcal | Carbohydrates: 0.6g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 18mg | Sodium: 579mg | Sugar: 5g | Iron: 0.2mg