Anyone made their own bacon from a pork belly. If so, list a good recipe especially the brining spices, etc. Gonna give it a try. Looking for something that tastes like store bought. Thanks.

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Decook on THF had a good write up on this recently.

Keep it as pork belly, slice off what you want, then season with salt, pepper. onion and garlic powder, better than any cured stuff.

I have cured my own bacon several times and you can't make it taste as bad as store bought, you'll only end up with something much much better. Sorry.

There are a ton of recipes on the internet, the only real trick to it is to get the right amount of cure, and you have to be able to measure it in grams. There's a different amount for curing with skin on and with skin off. Be accurate with that. For each pound of skin on bacon use 1.3 grams of Cure No. 1. For skinless use 1.45 grams per pound.

My favorite so far was cured with coffee and maple syrup. Don't use much of either, a little goes a long way. Cold smoke it after curing, or you can hot smoke it.

To really understand the process get this book, it is well worth the money spent and the time reading it:

https://www.amazon.com/Home-Production-Q...ts+and+sausages

I do them all the time. Get a pork belly and rinse it off. Then lather with maple syrup and 3 tablespoons of tenderquick per side. Put that in a large ziploc bag and put in fridge for 7 days, flipping it over each day. Then rinse again and smoke it at 185 degrees until the internal temp is 145 degrees. Put back in fridge to cool then slice (electric slicer works great), vacuum seal, one good freeze, then eat! I've found that one belly makes around 80 slices of bacon.

Here's a recipe from the book, this is a traditional recipe and is for a large piece. There's enough information though to tailor this down to smaller pieces:

Bacon - Dry Cured

For 5 kg (11 lbs) mild bacon with skin on
3%, 4.8 oz (150 g) salt
1.5%, 2.4 oz (68 g) sugar
0.02 oz, (7.8 g) Cure No. 1
Mix together thoroughly

1. Rub in 1/2 of the mixture on all sides, work into all crevices thoroughly. Put in a non-reactive covered container. Refrigerate. Turn it daily.
2. After 7 days overhaul (clean off) and rub in the other half of the salt/sugar/cure mix. Keep under refrigeration, 40 degrees F is suggested as acceptable. The meat will be cured from 12 to 15 days (allow 2 to 2.5 days per kg)
3. Soak bacon for one hour, brush the surface clean and hang until dry. This can mean a couple of days, until it gets the pellicule.
4. Smoke with a thin cold smoke for 1-2 days.
5. Refrigerate.

Of course you can change this up to suit you - but stick with the described amounts (prorated as needed for different weights) of salt and cure and sugar.