howtos

Shed-Headz Grill Masters

How To: Apple Wood Smoked Canadian Bacon

Ingredients:

2-5lb Pork Centre Loin or Loins

Brine Recipe: (per lb of meat)

0.35oz/lb Salt

0.25oz/lb Brown Sugar

1 tsp/5lb Curing Salt

This is actually an item my wife looked into and wanted me to make. Canadian bacon is made from a pork centre loin (left) but can be made from made cuts such as those Bassan brought over (right).

The process for Canadian Bacon is the exact same as regular bacon just the cut of meat is different. The brine recipe we used is exactly the same, we adjusted the amount of salt, brown sugar and cure according to the weight of each piece. They were individually vacuum sealed and left in the fridge for 14 days before smoking.

They were smoked using apple wood pellets and the entire cook took about 5 hours, first on smoke setting then to 200ºF to reach an internal temp of 150ºF, same as regular bacon.

We sliced the bacon on my meat slicer, a little thicker than regular bacon at 4mm. Sandra's centre loin had a nice amount of fat which adds to the flavor while Bassan's were meatier.

The final product came out great. When fried it has the texture of ham but flavor of bacon which was nice. The shape and size works great on breakfast sandwiches. Also a bonus, since the chunks of meat were smaller than pork belly, the whole slicing and packaging process went very quick.

Cheers, Mike