Homemade bacon

We usually make our bacon in larger quantities, as the work isn't much greater when making two pork bellies instead of one. Make sure to buy two that are boned, or remove them yourself.

Place the bellies in a dish and sprinkle salt, sugar, and spices on. Massage them into the meat, making sure to get into all the cracks (to avoid mold/rot).

The meat is vacuum-sealed and put in the fridge. If you don't have a vacuum sealer, make sure the meat goes into a tightly sealed bag and flip it at least once a day in the fridge.

Next, the meat needs to cure for 2-5 days. We usually do it for 3 days so it gets a good salt flavor without it overpowering everything.

When the meat is finished curing, rinse it in cold water. Use a cloth to dry it well, and place it on an uncovered plate in the fridge for a day. This will give the meat a sticky surface that smoke can adhere to better.

We don’t have a smokehouse, so we use an IKEA Knodd trash can, where we've drilled 2 holes in the side and 4 in the top with a 3 cm hole saw. The bellies are wrapped in netting and hung on a cut-off curtain rod.

We dry the smoking sawdust in the oven before use. It gets about 1 hour at 90 degrees Celsius (194 degrees Fahrenheit) to ensure it's dry. It's placed in an aluminum tray in a horseshoe shape and lit with a bit of alcohol.

Repeat the process 3 times, preferably 3 nights in a row.

After this, the meat needs to dry, which we do using dry-aging bags or a curing cabinet. We let the bacon sit in the bag for 2-4 weeks, depending on how firm we want it to be.

Finally, it's time to cut the bacon. The meat is firmer than the bacon you buy in the supermarket, so it can be sliced very thin. Use a meat slicer for best results.