First Attempt at Canadian Bacon

Here we go again, curing and smoking some pork.  This time I am going to make my first Canadian bacon. The recipe I'm working is from the Bradley Recipe Site.  This recipe requires a three week curing time which is very different from anything I have ever tried in the pass and is going to make this blog entry into a two or three parter. I'm going with this recipe because it calls for maple sugar cure and grade b maple syrup, two things I have on hand and would like to use.  So, for this recipe you will need only three ingredients:

• Pork loin
• Maple sugar cure, used to the manufacturer's specifications.
• Grade B maple syrup, this is not the kind you put on pancakes but it's best used for cooking.

My pork loin was a half portion weighing in at five pounds and after trimming the exterior fat from it, ended up weighing in at three and a half pounds. I cut this half.

The maple sugar cure was from Cabela's.  Their directions for dry rub application was 0.07lb per pound of meat.  For the amount of meat I had I calculated 3.5 pounds of meat would need about 0.25 pound of cure which would be 4 ounces.  Does that make sense?  I rubbed 2 ounces of cure on each half.

 

Each half was placed in its own one gallon zip loc bag.  Now they are in the fridge and I am turning them everyday.  After 3 days, I will be adding the maple syrup to them and promise to keep every one posted on the progress.