Dry curing the homemade bacon

• Mix all cure ingredients! You can experiment with the flavors by adding or mixing in different spices. However you must keep at least 3-4 procent of the total meat weight in nitrite salt
• Rub the pork belly thoroughly with the salt cure and add it to a vacuum bag. Make sure all of the salt is in the bag!
• Vacuum seal the bagwith a foodsaver and put in the fridge for 4-5 days. 
• Remove the pork belly from the bag and pat it dry. Now you're ready to smoke
• Gently stuff the cold smoke generator with extra fine hickory smoke dust. Don't push it too hard or it will die out. 
• Lit the cold smoker using a blow torch and once it's smoking add your cured homemade bacon to the smoker. Smoke for 10 hours (or more). Warning: make sure the temperature doesn't cross the 25°C/77°F limit. 
• Once smoked remove the homemade bacon from your smoker. Wrap it in a clean cheese cloth and tie it up with kitchen rope.
• Hang the homemade bacon in the fridge for dry aging. You need to lose 30% of weight before it's ready to serve (in this case it's done when you're left with a piece of homemade bacon that weighs 350 gr.). In this process the meat juices are evaporated causing the weight loss and intensifying the flavour!

Serve your homemade bacon with eggs or in a delicious pasta Carbonara! If you can resist eating it right away!