1st time making bacon

[MJ1966]

So I bought the blue ribbon maple bacon cure. I thought I could use this as a dry rub, but looks like it needs to be injected, no biggy. What else do I need to add, thinking there’s another ingredient to add to give it the bacon color? Also, can I smoke this flat in my smoker? I can’t hang the belly in my type of smoker. Last question, can a person just smoke the belly to 150 degrees and be done?
Thanks for any help!

[Jonathon]

MJ1966 You could technically use it as a dry rub, you would just have to do the calculations to convert what is designed as a pickle or injection to be used as a dry rub. Bacon has a limit on the ingoing nitrites to 200 ppm for dry rub and 120 for injection as charred bacon with way too high nitrites levels can be a carcinogen. Now, the 200ppm and 120 ppm limits mean you can char your bacon till it looks like charcoal without any health issues (though it’ll taste terrible!) so dont worry about that. How much does your belly weigh?

Yes, you can lay it flat, it will have some grooves in it from laying on a rack but that’s not too big of a deal.

If you do inject it then with the blue ribbon bacon cure it already has some sodium erythorbate in it so the only thing I would consider adding is Bacon Taste Booster. This is designed to give you the old world taste of dry rubbed bacon with injecting or tumbling. Now, if you do inject you should inject and then hold overnight in a solution that is 50% the strength of what you injected to allow the cure to equalize and disperse through the meat, better yet if you have a tumbler just toss it in there for 30 minutes after injecting.

Check out this for some more information on dry rubbing basics https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/800/cured-whole-muscle-meat-104-bacon-basics

[MJ1966]

Jonathon
Thanks for the info. Sounds like I need to order a few more items.
For the soak. I take it you either weigh or measure what volume you have for brine liquid and add that much water to cut it to 50%?
The belly I will be getting is just bit over 10 pounds.

[Joe Hell]

MJ1966 That’s correct on the water measurement!

[MJ1966]

Thanks for the info! Just need to order a few things and see what I can do at my first try at bacon.