- This episode is sponsored
by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has all the
top quality products and ideas to help you upgrade your outdoor space. For me, that's a new Traeger smoker, so I can have a sweet cooking
space in the backyard, and I can cook the subject
of today's episode, homemade bacon. That smells good. Get started on your outdoor
project with The Home Depot and check out the link
in the video description. Now, let's get down to basics. (upbeat music) All right, so you can make bacon out of all kinds of different things, but the stuff that you're
probably most familiar with is made from pork belly. Its ultra high fat content
makes it an ideal candidate for surviving the trauma of
curing, smoking, and frying. Now, you can do a big old
piece of belly like this, but cutting it into three pieces is not only going to let us
cure it three different ways, it's also gonna cure faster. Check out the curing calculator
over at amazingribs.com, which can calculate the exact
concentration of curing salt that you'll need as well as brine time, based on factors like your
pork's weight, height, and girth. So, as you can see, I'm
meticulously weighing out and measuring all my pieces, so I can safely and effectively cure them. Once you've done all your maths, we're gonna place our pork in
some leak-proof zip top bags, use a very precise scale to measure out our pink curing salt, also
known as Prague powder #1, which contains sodium nitrite, something toxic to humans
in large quantities, but perfectly safe when precisely measured and added to a brine. Speaking of which, as I mentioned, we're curing this bacon three ways. All my pieces weigh about two pounds and are about one-and-a-half inches thick at their thickest point. So into a small bowl, I'm combining one half
cup of distilled water, four tablespoons of brown sugar, one tablespoon of kosher salt, and 2.1 grams of Prague powder #1. Once again, consult the curing calculator at amazingribs.com to determine your exact water to curing salt ratio. We're pouring that into our zip top bags, zipping its top shut, and
hugging it close to our breast to squeeze out any excess
air as we zip it shut, ensuring that the pork is evenly exposed to the curing liquid. The curing calculator then demands that this pork cures in
the fridge for three days. Next up, we're gonna try making a bacon that I'm particularly excited
about, a pastrami bacon. Same half cup of distilled water, combined with one
tablespoon of brown sugar, one tablespoon of whole black peppercorns, one teaspoon of garlic powder, one teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds, one tablespoon kosher salt, one teaspoon whole allspice berries, one teaspoon whole Juniper berries, one and one half teaspoons of paprika, one tablespoon of whole coriander seeds, many, many spirited twists of
freshly ground black pepper, give everybody a mix to combine, and of course we can't
forget our curing salt, in this case, 2.2 grams
for my 796 grams of pork, and last but not least, two
crushed up dried bay leaves. Then same deal, this guy's
getting poured in the bag, along with the pork belly, getting all of the air lovingly
squeezed out of the bag, and getting mushed around a little bit to ensure even distribution. Last but not least a bacon
cured with guanchiale flavors. Guanchiale is traditionally
made with pork gel, but this is gonna make
for a delicious bacon that is purpose-built for carbonara. Half cup distilled water,
one tablespoon kosher salt, one tablespoon of sugar,
one teaspoon dried rosemary, one teaspoon dried thyme, one teaspoon whole all spice berries, for my 623 gram piece of pork, 1.8 grams of pink curing salt, and one-and-a-half tablespoons
whole black peppercorns that we're gonna briefly
crush up in a spice grinder. Plus, we're also gonna crush in one large clove of fresh garlic, tiny whisk to get all the
garlic off, and then to combine. And just like the rest, we're
pouring it into the bag, squeezing out all the air,
and making sure that the cure is evenly distributed around the meats before we place everything
on a rimmed baking sheet and fridge for the
specified amount of time, in my case, three days. Every 12 hours or so,
we're gonna pull them out and give them a massage and flip, making sure that every inch of our belly is getting enough exposure to the cure. Once again, depending on the
size and shape of your pork, this could take anywhere
from one day to two weeks. So for both maximum
deliciousness and your safety, make sure to follow the calculator. Once the cure is complete,
we're gonna rinse these guys and pat them dry before
placing them on a wire rack and fridging them one
last time for 12 hours. Then we're taking them out of the fridge for about half an hour
before finally smoking. So we're headed out to the Traeger, where I'm going to insert
a temperature probe into the thickest part the pork, plop it on the grate, and
smoke at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for anywhere from two to three hours until the belly registers
150 degrees internally. After which time, our belly should emerge
beautifully burnished and brown, smelling like the smoky beard
of the Norse God of pork. Then these guys need to
cool the room temperature, and then we need to fridge
them once again overnight, maybe even toss them into the
freezer for 15 to 20 minutes, so that they firm up
and are ready to slice. Once we've sliced off the exterior crust with a very sharp knife, we
can begin slicing in earnest into extra thick, beautiful
slabs of homemade bacon. And there you have it folks, it might be a little labor
intensive and time consuming, but it is the best bacon
that you will ever taste, and you have complete
control over the flavors. The pastrami bacon is one of
the most incredible things that I've ever put in my mouth. As you can imagine, slicing by hand is a little labor intensive, so if you're lucky enough
to own a deli slicer, now's the time to bust it out. Once you've got your bacon all sliced up, it's ready to cook just like normal bacon, but you remember that crust
that we sliced off earlier? Don't throw that away. This can be cut into bite-sized chunks. And as I mentioned before, it is absolutely perfect for carbonara or any application you can imagine that might need extra smokey bacon bits. But the first thing I wanted make when this stuff emerged triumphantly from the smoker, was a BLT. The most important element of which, apart from the bacon of course
is the T, or the tomato. You want ultra big, ultra
red, ultra ripe juicy joints, like these guys from my garden, which we're gonna slice thinly
using a nice sharp knife. And I like to salt them beforehand. This helps draw out their moisture and makes them even juicier
when it comes time to eat them. Next up, the mayo, which you
generally don't think of first when you think of BLT, but
it's just as important. As such, we're gonna want to make our own. So into an immersion blender cup, we're going to crack two large eggs, scoop in one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, add one teaspoon of kosher salt, squeeze the juice of one whole lemon, and crush the garlic of
two cloves of garlic. Then, we're plopping in the
head of the immersion blender and blending for a few seconds until everything is evenly combined. Then, slowly and carefully streaming two cups of a neutral oil
like vegetable oil or canola down the side of the cup, so
it settles on top of the eggs. Then, we're immersion
blending on high-speed, while moving the head of
the blender up and down until the eggs emulsify with the oil into a rich and creamy mayo. One that stands head and shoulders above anything you'll
ever get out of a jar. Then we're gonna bake our
bacon at 375 Fahrenheit for 20 to 25 minutes until crisp. This not only produces nice,
flat, evenly cooked bacon, but also some absolutely
gorgeous rendered bacon fat, which you should always have
in your fridge at the ready, and this is an excellent
way to harvest it. It's also an excellent way
to add more bacon flavor to our BLT by generously
brushing it on one side of our two slices of hearty white bread and toasting them brush side down in a heavy cast iron skillet. Then, allowing to cool on a
wire rack before assembly. Now, I like to put together my sandwich with the toasted side facing inward. This gives you all the crunch and flavor while preventing bread sogginess and sparing the roof of your mouth. So we're gonna generously
slather our homemade mayo on both sides of the sandwich, pile it high with iceberg lettuce or the artisanal lettuce of your choice, stack several slices of tomato on top, and finish the whole thing off with a Lincoln Log house of bacon, the best way to ensure
uniform distribution and structural integrity. Top it up, squish it down a little bit, install two toothpicks, both
for decoration and stability, slice it in half on the diagonal. And of course, inspect the cross section. As you can see, every bite should contain proportionally correct amounts of lettuce, homemade mayo, homemade bacon,
and vine-grown tomatoes, which you might notice are extra juicy, thanks in large part to the pre-salting. It's the absolute ultimate BLT. And sure, it takes a few
days to make your own bacon, but it is totally worth it. And it was made possible by this week's sponsor The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to get your outdoor space
set up for this next season. I was able to get this
Traeger Ironwood 650, plus this big boy tomato
plant from Bonnie Plants, so then I'll have tomatoes for BLTs with friends all summer long. If you've been waiting for a sign that you should freshen up your outdoor hanging space, this is it. Get your project started
with The Home Depot at homedepot.com/outdooroasis. The link is in the description. (gentle melodic music)
It has happened on previous videos (The Broodwich comes to mind), but the color balance or contrast or whatever it is called is super whacked out when it comes to certain reds, seen with the nearly-glowing colors of the tomatoes around 5:50 in.
Fresh tomatoes straight from Chernobyl
I left a Home Depot job two months ago for a much better gig in my field and hearing Home Depot again was the closest I've come to having an anxiety attack.
well, that's disappointing that he took a sponsor spot from Home Depot.
Anyone know why they're back to the old Basics intro? They introduced a revamped one for ep. 100, if I remember.
Oh hell yeah
Substitute bourbon for water in your cure. Game changer.
I've got some serious smoker envy...
Hasn’t he done a “Homemade Bacon” episode before?