Fast Cured Canadian Bacon

[Rajun Gardener]

I ate the dogfood, Really. I cooked steaks Thursday and bought a pack of thin sliced pork loin for $3 to cook for the dog but forgot. So here we are.
 
I started this experiment at 9:30 Friday morning and finished it today, I should've been finished last night but it was late.
 
I made a dry cure using the following grams carefully measured with a jewelers scale.
meat      1lb                                         453.5grams
Kosher or pickling salt 2.2% 9.977g
cane sugar                 1%         4.535g
Cure #1                         0.25% 1.13375g
 
I dried off the meat then carefully sprinkled the meat with the cure and vac sealed it for faster curing. It sat in the fridge for 8 hours before I pulled it out. You can see I had to use the paper towel trick to stop the liquid that was already starting to come out of the meat.

I rinsed it off a few times and smoked it for an hour at 150 then bumped up to 200 to get to that 145 temperature.

Out of the smoker, I could already tell it wasn't smoked enough but this is experimental and it was 11PM.

I fried up a test piece. It was too salty for me but it was good. 

I left it in the fridge to finish curing/drying over night, this morning I soaked them in water for 30 minutes to remove some salt and smoked them again just till they dried out.

I had to fry up a test piece and this time it's much better and not as salty.

 
 
Lessons learned:
Soak the cured meat for an hour changing out the water every 20 minutes.
Let it rest on the counter till it gets tacky/forms a peticule before smoking.
Next time smoke for 3 hours then let it set in the fridge overnight unwrapped. I know 3 hours seems like a short time but this thin meat absorbs enough smoke flavor for breakfast and not over powering.
 
Other than that this came out good considering the time it took. Does anyone see something I missed or have suggestions to improve it?

 

[Holly2015]

Mortons tender quick has a "quick cure" recipe on the bag but "quick cure" is sort of misleading term wise. Curing take time and there is little you can do to speed it up w/o getting into injecting. Even then the cure penetrate the meat at the same rate its just introduced into the meat spreading t out more than just waiting for it to soak in from the surface. 
 
Also vacuum packing has not proved to make the cure penetrate the meat any faster than when at atmospheric pressure. I do use vac bags for curing but only evacuate about 80% of the air or then seal. This air space will also allow you to redistribute the cure containing juices over the meat buy flipping the bag over. If the bag is sucked tight to the meat  juices cannot leech out as freely.
 
 It is generally accepted that cure penetrates meats (between 37 and 42 degrees F at a rate of 1/4" per 24 hours. Sometime a little faster other times a little slower so it is always advisable to add a couple extra WTF days to a cure as a safety. So a 1" thick piece of meat will take 4 days + a couple days to be fully cured. 
 
I've made cured pork chops like you did although take in a few days to completely cure and they do come out like a cross between a pork chop and ham steak....delicious!

 

[Rajun Gardener]

All good points and you are correct about vacpacking to speed it up. 
 
A note about the 1/4" a day, it will absorb from both sides equally so the time for a 1" piece of meat would be 2 days. That's the reason this cured so fast, it was about 5/16" thick.
 
What other meats have you been curing?

 

[Holly2015]

Bresaola, lonzino & guanciale - traditional and with various hot peppers.

Dried beef - traditional and spicy

Salmon - gravlox - cured and smoked

Beef cheeks

Jerky, summer sausage and kielbasa

Bacon, buckboard bacon, Canadian bacon

Corned beef/pastrami

 

[Holly2015]

I figure on the cure penetrating at a 1/4 total per day as a total. No matter if it 1/8 from 2 sides or a 1/16 from 4 sides.

Then add up to 5 days depending on the thickest part has never failed me. It is easy to under cure but almost impossible to over cure.

 

[Holly2015]

As for improving that a bit up to you. What was lacking. 
 
When I smoke pork products I prefer cold smoke as it the final product is different texturally. No uncommon for me to cold smoke belly bacon 8 to 10 sessions lasting 10 to 12 hours each with resign in the refrigerator when not on the smoke. 
 
You'd be surprised that this many hours on  the smoke produces such a mild but deep flavor A thin blue wisp of cold fruitwood smoke for days and days kicks up good product to great product.
 
Thin chops like that after the cure I'd have cold smoked overnight on apple wood then let rest in the fridge uncovered in the fridge all day to gas off then into a skillet or grilled over charcoal to finish. Or eve bread and deep fry for a breaded ham/chop steak. Drooooooooool……...