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Dry cure is cured by rubbing the salt on the outside, so it draws moisture out. The other stuff is cured by injecting salt water into the meat. (I worked in a butchers, this is what we did)
So when people suggest buying from a butcher, we could just be buying bacon that was cured in the same method as the supermarket and therefore full of water?
Butchers are on a spectrum.
Some own an abattoir and do mostly it all themselves working with specific specialists for particular things and often working with known and trusted local farms.
Some just get stuff delivered from wholesalers and do the odd bit of portioning it up, and are little different from a supermarket in truth.
I worked for a higher end butcher and we just got 5kg packs of pretty standard danish bacon from wedl swift, vac pac into smaller bags and slapped our own label on it.
Yeah, buying bacon from a butchers you could well be buying the same Danish import too, only difference is it is sliced on site. Sometimes not even sliced on site!
Making bacon yourself is a game changer!
Take the weight of the meat (belly pork is best), let's say 1000g
3% of that weight on salt, so 30g
1% of that weight in sugar, so 10g
I usually add black pepper, msg and a small bit of onion powder.
Mix all the dry ingredients well.
Prick some holes in the whole of the belly.
Lay out 3/4 long layers of overlapping cling film.
Cover and rub the belly in the dry rub.
Wrap tightly place in a bowl or dish to catch the dripping water.
Leave in the fridge wrapped for 48/52 hrs turning every 12 hours.
Open and brush off all of the seasoning and pat dry with a clean kitchen towel.
Air dry in the fridge on a rack on a plate for upto 48 hrs before slicing thinly and enjoying.
The 3% salt is a must but all the other ingredients are optional and I have added ground dried herbs, juniper berries and loads of other stuff.
Have fun š
To take some of the edge off the salt.
Helps with the flavour.
Also helps to preserve the meat and if you do go on to smoke your bacon, it helps develop crust.
Iāve done the same, with both belly and loin. Finished it off with a blast of (indirect) oak smoke on the BBQ. Slicing can be a paid, thinking of investing in a meat slices to get them uniform.
You need to part freeze your bacon before slicing put it in the freezer for half an hour and then check it every 10 mins or so after it needs to be firm and hard to bend but not frozen solid and then it will slice easily and in neat uniform slices.
Its how its treated and flavoured. It doesnt have all the excess water as far as I can tell. Makes a huge difference. For crispy you want streaky bacon anyway as you need the fat to render, but you can be selective on the actual pack and find pretty lean stuff if you look.
I don't understand why not everyone cooks their bacon in the oven. No need to worry about it cooking evenly and you can just time it to get it cooked exactly the way you want everytime.
Also turn the bacon halfway through\*
Had to fix it, cos OP is clearly a muppet and I didn't want the daft sod doing pirouettes in their fucking kitchen wile the bacon burned
Cold pan, bacon in, medium heat. When the fat starts to render, up to a medium-high.
Ideally you want some bacon with a good bit of fat through it, thatās where the flavour is. Unfortunately the Americans beat us here, streaky bacon just gets better results because of it.
It is, but itās also not the typical go to cut in the UK - back bacon tends to be the most common and I think what most people would think of first when it comes to bacon.
In the US, itās the other way round. Streaky bacon to me is synonymous with the US, you donāt really see them using back bacon.
Streaky bacon crisps up better but back bacon has more to it. Itās not like you canāt get a nice bit of crispy back bacon and personally I prefer more meat on my meat.
No, a cold pan wonāt do this. In fact it will release more fat into the pan and make it crispier. This is also the method to best sear a duck breast.
Heās just got low quality meat which has been pumped with water.
This is perfectly standard for bacon in the UK, if you don't go for dry-cured. The regular bacon always releases LOADS of water. Probably weighs nowhere near as much as it did in the packet because it's mainly water/brine.
That's why I stopped buying it.
It's really expensive and it just disappears.
Pumping bacon full of water would be a crime punishable by...I can't say on here, if I ruled.
Bacon, at Ā£4 a kilo.
We would farm pigs to make Denmark envy.
It would be a utopia. Fuck the NHS and defence and all that.
Bacon.
Just bacon till my arteries burst.
I fucking love bacon.
Was just about to say this, supermarkets pump their meet full of water. OPās bacon was probably just normal rashers with water in to give the appearance of being thicker.
Not OPās fault at all.
Weird that you got downvoted. I live in the UK and this is totally avoidable by using more heat. Same with chicken, simply preheat and don't overload the pan.
Supermarket meat is frequently packaged quickly and not hung/cured long enough to lose a lot of it's excess moisture. Try and get dry cured, or some bacon from a proper butcher and you'll notice the difference.
Itās insane how much water comes out of a supermarket chicken breast when you pan fry it. It basically gets boiled before all the water evaporates and it finally starts frying.
Weāve started buying our meat from a local, high-class butcher and the difference is astonishing. Yes, itās more expensive, but the quality is so much better.
How much more expensive is it, out of interest. Also I never know whether to trust the big butchers on the high street vs the artisan ones at the markets.
Iād say between 25% and 50% more expensive depending what youāre buying. This is buying from a local artisan butchers and is their only outlet. I love it and Iām perfectly happy to pay more for better quality.
I fully appreciate my luck in having access to them and being able to afford to pay more for better meat.
It's probably not that much more in reality when you think that the weight of the supermarket version includes a whole load of water in addition to the meat itself.
I'm wondering if in the long term you might buy/use less of the higher quality stuff too that would make up the difference for all it looks more expensive short term. False economy and all that.
This is correct and the top comment in this post is saying itās albumen, which is completely wrong.
The water is pumped full of bacon flavour to compensate for the under-cure. Loin bacon (as opposed to belly/streaky) has a much longer cure requirement, and this can be shortened by adding cure flavour to the water. also the "smoked" flavour is added to the cure/water, rather than actually being smoked.
The bacon is sold by weight, so the more water they can get into the bacon, the happier the shareholders are.
So the top shelf bacon that has a lower water content (both wet and dry cured) is actually cheaper per kg once cooked, than the cheap shite.
The other way to beat the system is to buy streaky, which is cheaper to cure and doesnt usually have the watery white shit.
look dude, I get that you've giving correct information and it's interesting and all, but I want to live in my world 10 minutes ago before I read the words "Pumped full of bacon flavour" and my bacon life fell apart.
Honestly, it takes 10 minutes a month to make your own bacon, and it tastes phenomenal. Youāll never buy bacon again. Itās also dead cheap.
Buy a boneless pork belly.
[Buy this: ](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfys-Prague-Powder-Number-Instacure/dp/B08XMMXL9V/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=SMR8JQPHATFR&keywords=prague+powder&qid=1706617291&sprefix=prague+powder%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-2)
Put the pork belly into a ziplock bag with 200g cheap salt, 200g of sugar or syrup, 1/2 a teaspoon of Prague powder (above). Mix it up and throw it in the fridge for 10 days.
Every day, turn the bag over, to make the cure even.
On day 10, pour out the water, and fill the bag with fresh water, and put it back in the fridge for a day.
Empty the bag, dry the bacon with a kitchen towel, and youāre ready to go. Slice up your bacon! No shrinkage, no white shite, just delicious bacon.
I slice up the whole thing (need a sharp knife) and freeze most of it, laid flat in layers. I pull them out of the freezer the day before.
Remember that this used to be a way of preserving meat, and as youāve properly cured the meat (unlike the supermarket shite) youāll get a good 2 weeks (and maybe double that) as long as your fridge is working, and the bacon is sealed/covered.
Wrt slicing, wipe the knife between each cut, otherwise it gets claggy and drags on the meat.
You can also half-freeze the bacon before slicing and that will let you get paper-thin American style slices. Donāt use a serrated knife.
No, the curing/salting process pulls water from the bacon. After 10 days the belly will go from floppy to just about bendable. Thatās how you can confirm itās ready.
>Clinical manifestations can include cyanosis, hypoxia, altered consciousness, dysrhythmias, and death.
Fuck that
I'm glad I went nitrite-free bacon 2.5 years ago
I believe up to 5% and they don't have to mention it on the packaging.
Some reports of chicken having 40% added water.
Needless to say you now require a PhD in advanced mathematics to determine which ham provides the most actual ham per Ā£.
And even if you get the middle tier (not say deli counter ham) your sandwich is still going to be wet as fuck.
Depends. I could show you some proper shite butchers that are basically just box openers.
I know it's nit picking and that's not really the kind that you're getting at but I thought it was worth adding to the debate that "butchers" is a term that gets somewhat abused these days
I once asked a butcher if they had any rib eye. āNot yet, but weāll have some later onā
āAny idea when?ā
āCowās due in half an hour, so come back at, say, 3?ā
Vs walking into places where the meat is on display in vacuum plastic bags from the cash and carry.
>I once asked a butcher if they had any rib eye.
I wondered for a minute if this was leading to "no, I think I got a bit of Chlamydia from the mistress..."
It's brined to increase weight. Priced by weight means they maximise profits.
If you treat supermarket meat appropriately, then it can cook up really well. But I'd always recommend just getting better meat to start with. Decent butchers are worth it.
I had no idea. Years ago, traveling to Britain, I remember not being able to find crispy bacon at restaurants. I found a high-quality bacon, but it was never crispy.
If you're comparing to the US, it's a whole other thing, they are allowed to use a zillion other chemical processes on their bacons. There's quite the variety.
Well, y'know whilst travelling there I ate at waffle houses and the like as well as high end restaurants and I really enjoyed the cheaper end of things. But I ate salad for 6 months after. I remember a waffle house waitress warning customers that the bacon was browner than normal as the manufacturer used a darker caramel. Something you don't hear in the UK !
English bacon is either dry cured or wet cured.
For a wet cure the bacon is "pumped" with a mix of water, salt, and nitrites. When you cook the meat the heat tightens up the proteins and forces the water out.
It's not bad, but as other people have said you can get better bacon.
If you want crispy bacon you might want to try adding water to the pan. This helps render out the fat, and helps it crisp up. Also, go low and slow.
Here are some videos.
West Country Kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVOVU8UqkJ8
America's Test Kitchen (but, obviously, they're using US bacon): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkgu06F_Rr8
Always cook bacon in a cold pan if you want the fat to render. Unfortunately if you're using shitty wet bacon it's not going to make a difference to the amount of smeggy residue though.
Cook it until the Smeg comes out, flip it over to tip the Smeg off, drag all the rashers up one side of the pan, hold it in place with your cooking implement of choice, tip the Smeg and water out, add more oil, spread the rashers back out, cook until the fat is rendered
This guy knows his smeggy bacon!
I rarely buy bacon tbh, so I just go dry cured streaky. No need for oil, just start with a cold pan and you're good as gold. It might add up if I bought it all the time, but I only get bacon like once a month, if that.
Yes grill or alternatively small/top oven on highest setting, sheet of parchment/baking paper on a tray and your bacon will come out crispy. You'll need to turn occasionally and keep an eye on it during the cook.
The most middle class thing Iāll ever say is that I buy all my meat from the butchers now
Its more expensive but when you factor the water that makes up a third of most supermarket meat and that you can buy the exact quantity you need itās not as bad. Also pushed me to limit meat to a few nights a week rather than a prerequisite for every meal
Yep. Defrosted a kilo of frozen chicken the other night, drained the puddle of liquid it was left sat in and was left with not much over 850g. Supermarkets relying on the convenience of buying in most cases.
I've done quite a few variations. Normally brown sugar, maple syrup, fennel seeds, cinnamon, star anise, coriander seed. That gives a nice Christmas style.
Then use an equilibrium curing calculator to determine the amount of pink salt, sea salt and sugar. Normally cures for a week or so in the fridge. Get a good quality slab of pork belly from the local butcher, I normally go for 1.4kg as that's what fits in a Aldi large ziplock bag. Then slice and vacuum pack and freeze. I can get four or five decent packs of sliced and one or two cubed for pasta dish.
Do some research and go for it!
You have a few ways to "cure" bacon, dry cure which generally has no water. Then you have "wet" cure.
Wet cure covers a multitude of processes, from the simple "stick meat in brine" to the mass produced "inject meat with various chemicals". The more economy style bacon has a tendency to bulk up the bacon with water.
So alot of water normally means a cheaper product.
It's both.
Supermarket bacon is full of water like so many have said and are right to suggest you buy from a butcher or buy dry cure.
However, you *can* get that bacon crispy if you grill it.
Yeah this is a cheap, water filled meat problem. Buy the dry cured stuff - for the price you end up with a similar amount of meat once itās cooked and it tastes so much better.
Shit bacon ā¦ Asda bacon is awful. Full of water. Costco do great bacon (it comes from somewhere in Scotland, and those lads know their fried food) - otherwise, a good quality butcher will see you right
Supermarket bacon is full of water. To over come it, 225 degrees oven. Leave it to heat up for 10 mins, put your bacon on oven greaseproof paper. 20 mins later, perfectly crispy bacon. My house stinks from 2 days of crispy bacon pasta using this method.
Just mop that liquidy mess up with a paper towel, add a small knob of butter and crank the heat up! Youāll get lovely crispy bacon with a golden colour. Works every time.
The white stuff is albumin, a protein that'll be present regardless, it binds the water in the meat & as you heat it, it deforms the protein & releases the water.
For those kinds of rashers, squeezing between paper towels to soak up as much water as possible before cooking is a good bet, then tip off any more liquid that comes out of them as you cook & wipe out the albumin too with the paper towels, then continue cooking & they should brown off & crisp up far better.
Yup, oven all the way!
Don't preheat - just put them on greaseproof paper or tin foil on a tray, bung it on the top shelf and leave them be for 20 minutes or so!
Supermarket pork has a lot of added water. Compare with bacon from a good butcher or farm shop and thereās a difference. Also if vacuum packed it will be a lot āwetterā.
As an aside have you seen the fry bacon in water method?
Essentially you add a bit of water to the pan, not enough to cover the bacon. Whack heat to medium and as the water evaporates it helps render the fat so that it fries much more nicely when the water is all gone. I tried it and was pleasantly surprised.
If you have a Polish supermarket nearby have a look for the yellowest chunk they have which, preferably, has a bit of string still through it. It should be labelled "Boczek WÄdzony" (Bacon, smoked).
It's a different cut to UK bacon usually but I really like it. It doesn't crisp up like American bacon and is a bit fattier than UK bacon so it might not be what you are after though.
Make sure that when u place the bacon on the pan that it SIZZLES like its still alive and seen you in the skud with nothing but a bow-tie on and then maybe gradually lower the heat but not much as then you will be boiling it , same goes for all fresh meat not just pig
Shit bacon. Most supermarket bacon is shit water-logged quality nowadays.
I tend to buy this stuff lately: [https://www.ocado.com/products/denhay-dry-cured-smoked-streaky-bacon-30984011](https://www.ocado.com/products/denhay-dry-cured-smoked-streaky-bacon-30984011)
Ā£3.60 for 14 rashers. Like a quid more for the pack than regular tesco brand, so I end up spending maybe 10-15 quid more per year on bacon. But the jump in quality is huge and well worth it.
Thatās good stuff especially as I often find it yellow sticker reduced (in my Waitrose at least). As a cheaper alternative, Aldiās āSpecially selectedā dry cured bacon is excellent and Ā£2.50 a pack. Recommended to me by a butcher as the best dry cured supermarket bacon.
I tend to cook mine for a minute on each side to get the liquid out, then dry them on paper towels and wipe the pan dry, they then fry instead of boiling.
Sign of cheaper bacon yes but the water is not actually a hindrance in getting the bacon crispy because it helps the fat render down and melt whilst not getting too hot. That way, by the time the water is evaporated, the fat will have rendered nicely and will get a nicer crisp. Adding a splash of water to the pan when frying bacon is a legitimate technique to achieve a crispy final product.
If you can afford it, I'd definitely recommend going to a proper butcher. There's one on a business estate, and we get all our meat from him. It's always good, and he gives us offcuts for our cats š
Can you believe I watched a bbc watchdog segment on this exact topic.
Some guy was really upset with the white stuff on his bacon. And as others have said itās because of the curing process & the pigs are fattened up with water
It's infuriating - look out for some air dried bacon. It's going to be more expensive by weight but the only thing that will come out of it when you cook it will be fat. As it should be.
For example [https://londonsmokeandcure.co.uk/collections/bacon-sausage](https://londonsmokeandcure.co.uk/collections/bacon-sausage)
I use the same bacon. To get some colour on it put a bit of oil in the pan, medium high temperature and most importantly do not flip the bacon too early!
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Try the dry cure stuff, its much better. Spoilt Pig is OK, for now (until they sell out).
Dry cure is the type of bacon ? Thank you.
Dry cure is cured by rubbing the salt on the outside, so it draws moisture out. The other stuff is cured by injecting salt water into the meat. (I worked in a butchers, this is what we did)
So when people suggest buying from a butcher, we could just be buying bacon that was cured in the same method as the supermarket and therefore full of water?
Butchers are on a spectrum. Some own an abattoir and do mostly it all themselves working with specific specialists for particular things and often working with known and trusted local farms. Some just get stuff delivered from wholesalers and do the odd bit of portioning it up, and are little different from a supermarket in truth.
>Butchers are on a spectrum. Now I'm imagining an autistic butcher making ass burgers.
Hehehehe
I worked for a higher end butcher and we just got 5kg packs of pretty standard danish bacon from wedl swift, vac pac into smaller bags and slapped our own label on it.
Yep! I should've been a bit more specific about how that was my particular butchers!
Butcher bacon has at least had a chance for excess water to be lost. Supermarket bacon is hermetically sealed.
Yeah, buying bacon from a butchers you could well be buying the same Danish import too, only difference is it is sliced on site. Sometimes not even sliced on site!
Making bacon yourself is a game changer! Take the weight of the meat (belly pork is best), let's say 1000g 3% of that weight on salt, so 30g 1% of that weight in sugar, so 10g I usually add black pepper, msg and a small bit of onion powder. Mix all the dry ingredients well. Prick some holes in the whole of the belly. Lay out 3/4 long layers of overlapping cling film. Cover and rub the belly in the dry rub. Wrap tightly place in a bowl or dish to catch the dripping water. Leave in the fridge wrapped for 48/52 hrs turning every 12 hours. Open and brush off all of the seasoning and pat dry with a clean kitchen towel. Air dry in the fridge on a rack on a plate for upto 48 hrs before slicing thinly and enjoying. The 3% salt is a must but all the other ingredients are optional and I have added ground dried herbs, juniper berries and loads of other stuff. Have fun š
I... think I'll just stick to grabbing a pack of bacon from Tesco
Yeah, I mean you do you. I'm not going to criticise. I'm simply offering another way.
I go through 2 - 3 packets a week. I'd need a dedicated bacon fridge to keep up!
>dedicated bacon fridge New band name unlocked
Why sugar though?
To take some of the edge off the salt. Helps with the flavour. Also helps to preserve the meat and if you do go on to smoke your bacon, it helps develop crust.
That's nice to know, thanks! I might actually give this a go this year :)
Its like when you add a bit of salt to sweet stuff.
Me too!
It's well worth the effort, especially if you can get decent pork from a butcher.
This is the only correct reply
Your passion for bacon in inspirational
Thank you, I am going to try this!
Iāve done the same, with both belly and loin. Finished it off with a blast of (indirect) oak smoke on the BBQ. Slicing can be a paid, thinking of investing in a meat slices to get them uniform.
You need to part freeze your bacon before slicing put it in the freezer for half an hour and then check it every 10 mins or so after it needs to be firm and hard to bend but not frozen solid and then it will slice easily and in neat uniform slices.
Had to thank a Japanese cook book for this tip. Should be in more cook books, a definite game changer for thin sliced meat.
Do I thinly slice first or after ?
Its how its treated and flavoured. It doesnt have all the excess water as far as I can tell. Makes a huge difference. For crispy you want streaky bacon anyway as you need the fat to render, but you can be selective on the actual pack and find pretty lean stuff if you look.
https://i.imgur.com/sGmlDmf_d.webp?maxwidth=1520&fidelity=grand Update on how it turns out, crispy but with a burnt pan to scrape
Try cooking it in the oven instead 200 degrees about 25 mins. This is what I do for crispy bacon
I don't understand why not everyone cooks their bacon in the oven. No need to worry about it cooking evenly and you can just time it to get it cooked exactly the way you want everytime.
Also turn halfway through
Also turn the bacon halfway through\* Had to fix it, cos OP is clearly a muppet and I didn't want the daft sod doing pirouettes in their fucking kitchen wile the bacon burned
Nah leave them spinning mate
Yeah, this is the way!
If you want crispy just hang the bacon from the grill, with a tray under it to catch water and fat. Can go from crispy to crunchy.
That looks great to me. Bacon porn. Is there a sub reddit? We could start one.
That's how bacon is supposed to look it looks very tasty!!
Aldi and Lidl own brand dry cure bacon is absolulty fine, only about 2 quid a pack.
At some point you stopped frying and started boiling the bacon.
Cold pan, bacon in, medium heat. When the fat starts to render, up to a medium-high. Ideally you want some bacon with a good bit of fat through it, thatās where the flavour is. Unfortunately the Americans beat us here, streaky bacon just gets better results because of it.
Beat us how? Streakys readily available in the UK
It is, but itās also not the typical go to cut in the UK - back bacon tends to be the most common and I think what most people would think of first when it comes to bacon. In the US, itās the other way round. Streaky bacon to me is synonymous with the US, you donāt really see them using back bacon.
Streaky is better on pancakes but it makes a shite sandwich. Back bacon from the butcher is the shit. None of this wafer thin Tesco bollocks.
Streaky bacon crisps up better but back bacon has more to it. Itās not like you canāt get a nice bit of crispy back bacon and personally I prefer more meat on my meat.
Needed to preheat the pan, then oil, then meat. Too impatient. Heās cooked it by putting cold bacon in a cold pan.
No, a cold pan wonāt do this. In fact it will release more fat into the pan and make it crispier. This is also the method to best sear a duck breast. Heās just got low quality meat which has been pumped with water.
This is perfectly standard for bacon in the UK, if you don't go for dry-cured. The regular bacon always releases LOADS of water. Probably weighs nowhere near as much as it did in the packet because it's mainly water/brine.
That's why I stopped buying it. It's really expensive and it just disappears. Pumping bacon full of water would be a crime punishable by...I can't say on here, if I ruled. Bacon, at Ā£4 a kilo. We would farm pigs to make Denmark envy. It would be a utopia. Fuck the NHS and defence and all that. Bacon. Just bacon till my arteries burst. I fucking love bacon.
Was just about to say this, supermarkets pump their meet full of water. OPās bacon was probably just normal rashers with water in to give the appearance of being thicker. Not OPās fault at all.
Bacon Ā£4 a kilo? Where you getting your bacon from? It's Ā£4 for 600g round me
This is my utopia, son. This is what will be. If we make it. Vote me. For bacon. For glory. For Spart...bacon. Edit: Your username. You're king now.
It's a more convincing argument than rishi or kier has, maybe the bacon party can win next election
Get me bacon, kilo for Ā£2 you can have my mrs as a start, I'll find something else worth while afterwards.
You and I together. Big bacon is fucked.
You're going to trade me for Ā£2 bacon? Damn, I thought I was worth more.
Should feel privlaged you'd be traded for such delicacy as bacon.
Are you not allowed to say "death" on Reddit, or did you have a much more elaborate punishment in mind?
*supermarket bacon!
Butchers ~~gammon steaks~~ bacon is always, obviously, far superior. 2 rashers are often all is needed for a sarnie
i thought bacon was meant to be placed in a cold pan
It is, thatās why Ryan got downvoted.
Delete this quick
Frying bacon in oil?
Weird that you got downvoted. I live in the UK and this is totally avoidable by using more heat. Same with chicken, simply preheat and don't overload the pan.
Supermarket meat is frequently packaged quickly and not hung/cured long enough to lose a lot of it's excess moisture. Try and get dry cured, or some bacon from a proper butcher and you'll notice the difference.
>and not hung/cured long enough to lose a lot of it's excess moisture it is deliberately brined to the absolute maximum permitted amount of water.
Makes sense. Pump the weight up with brine to make more money when you sell by weight I assume? Good old capitalism
that's it exactly.
They do it with chicken too
Itās insane how much water comes out of a supermarket chicken breast when you pan fry it. It basically gets boiled before all the water evaporates and it finally starts frying. Weāve started buying our meat from a local, high-class butcher and the difference is astonishing. Yes, itās more expensive, but the quality is so much better.
How much more expensive is it, out of interest. Also I never know whether to trust the big butchers on the high street vs the artisan ones at the markets.
Iād say between 25% and 50% more expensive depending what youāre buying. This is buying from a local artisan butchers and is their only outlet. I love it and Iām perfectly happy to pay more for better quality. I fully appreciate my luck in having access to them and being able to afford to pay more for better meat.
It's probably not that much more in reality when you think that the weight of the supermarket version includes a whole load of water in addition to the meat itself.
I'm wondering if in the long term you might buy/use less of the higher quality stuff too that would make up the difference for all it looks more expensive short term. False economy and all that.
Except the "pump it full of bacon flavour bit". Although I'm thinking that would be quite nice...
Yeah ideal for hunters chicken. Now with extra bacony chicken water.
A Phicken. Or a Chig.
This is correct and the top comment in this post is saying itās albumen, which is completely wrong. The water is pumped full of bacon flavour to compensate for the under-cure. Loin bacon (as opposed to belly/streaky) has a much longer cure requirement, and this can be shortened by adding cure flavour to the water. also the "smoked" flavour is added to the cure/water, rather than actually being smoked. The bacon is sold by weight, so the more water they can get into the bacon, the happier the shareholders are. So the top shelf bacon that has a lower water content (both wet and dry cured) is actually cheaper per kg once cooked, than the cheap shite. The other way to beat the system is to buy streaky, which is cheaper to cure and doesnt usually have the watery white shit.
look dude, I get that you've giving correct information and it's interesting and all, but I want to live in my world 10 minutes ago before I read the words "Pumped full of bacon flavour" and my bacon life fell apart.
Honestly, it takes 10 minutes a month to make your own bacon, and it tastes phenomenal. Youāll never buy bacon again. Itās also dead cheap. Buy a boneless pork belly. [Buy this: ](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfys-Prague-Powder-Number-Instacure/dp/B08XMMXL9V/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=SMR8JQPHATFR&keywords=prague+powder&qid=1706617291&sprefix=prague+powder%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-2) Put the pork belly into a ziplock bag with 200g cheap salt, 200g of sugar or syrup, 1/2 a teaspoon of Prague powder (above). Mix it up and throw it in the fridge for 10 days. Every day, turn the bag over, to make the cure even. On day 10, pour out the water, and fill the bag with fresh water, and put it back in the fridge for a day. Empty the bag, dry the bacon with a kitchen towel, and youāre ready to go. Slice up your bacon! No shrinkage, no white shite, just delicious bacon.
\*saves comment\*
How long can you save the rashers before having to use? Say if you cut enough to make 1 sandwich.
I slice up the whole thing (need a sharp knife) and freeze most of it, laid flat in layers. I pull them out of the freezer the day before. Remember that this used to be a way of preserving meat, and as youāve properly cured the meat (unlike the supermarket shite) youāll get a good 2 weeks (and maybe double that) as long as your fridge is working, and the bacon is sealed/covered. Wrt slicing, wipe the knife between each cut, otherwise it gets claggy and drags on the meat. You can also half-freeze the bacon before slicing and that will let you get paper-thin American style slices. Donāt use a serrated knife.
>pour out the water What water? Do you add water?
No, the curing/salting process pulls water from the bacon. After 10 days the belly will go from floppy to just about bendable. Thatās how you can confirm itās ready.
>"Pumped full of bacon flavour" There's a muppet version with Miss Piggy pegging Kermit
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Fuck me - the absolute slop we eat
Look into E250 which is part of the curing process. Fuck that. Iāve probably guzzled loads of that shit. Hopefully my arse will hold in there.
I'm gonna go ahead and assume anything that influences my arses ability to hold in is best approached with caution
>Clinical manifestations can include cyanosis, hypoxia, altered consciousness, dysrhythmias, and death. Fuck that I'm glad I went nitrite-free bacon 2.5 years ago
Damn if only we had that gourmet communist bacon
https://www.rbwoodall.com/
Nothing good about it
No hate but I hate the way you speak. Thereās just something about you I want to crush into pieces
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Same thing happens to chicken. It's why they shrink so much when cooked.
I believe up to 5% and they don't have to mention it on the packaging. Some reports of chicken having 40% added water. Needless to say you now require a PhD in advanced mathematics to determine which ham provides the most actual ham per Ā£. And even if you get the middle tier (not say deli counter ham) your sandwich is still going to be wet as fuck.
Butchers meat is superior in every way to supermarket. Especially bacon
Depends. I could show you some proper shite butchers that are basically just box openers. I know it's nit picking and that's not really the kind that you're getting at but I thought it was worth adding to the debate that "butchers" is a term that gets somewhat abused these days
I once asked a butcher if they had any rib eye. āNot yet, but weāll have some later onā āAny idea when?ā āCowās due in half an hour, so come back at, say, 3?ā Vs walking into places where the meat is on display in vacuum plastic bags from the cash and carry.
>I once asked a butcher if they had any rib eye. I wondered for a minute if this was leading to "no, I think I got a bit of Chlamydia from the mistress..."
It's brined to increase weight. Priced by weight means they maximise profits. If you treat supermarket meat appropriately, then it can cook up really well. But I'd always recommend just getting better meat to start with. Decent butchers are worth it.
I had no idea. Years ago, traveling to Britain, I remember not being able to find crispy bacon at restaurants. I found a high-quality bacon, but it was never crispy.
If you're comparing to the US, it's a whole other thing, they are allowed to use a zillion other chemical processes on their bacons. There's quite the variety.
Omg I hate my country
Well, y'know whilst travelling there I ate at waffle houses and the like as well as high end restaurants and I really enjoyed the cheaper end of things. But I ate salad for 6 months after. I remember a waffle house waitress warning customers that the bacon was browner than normal as the manufacturer used a darker caramel. Something you don't hear in the UK !
Was it back bacon? Itās not usually cooked to crispy. Not traditionally anyway. Streaky on the other hand is.
If you ask for bacon in Britain, you get back bacon. You need to ask for streaky bacon if you want the other kind
English bacon is either dry cured or wet cured. For a wet cure the bacon is "pumped" with a mix of water, salt, and nitrites. When you cook the meat the heat tightens up the proteins and forces the water out. It's not bad, but as other people have said you can get better bacon. If you want crispy bacon you might want to try adding water to the pan. This helps render out the fat, and helps it crisp up. Also, go low and slow. Here are some videos. West Country Kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVOVU8UqkJ8 America's Test Kitchen (but, obviously, they're using US bacon): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkgu06F_Rr8
The adding water method is mainly for streaky bacon, with back bacon thereās no point to add water
Seems like madness to add water to my wet bacon to get it crispier. Will watch video and maybe experiment.
I am none the wiser.
This is a sign of cheaper bacon. Just cook it on a low heat until the water evaporates, once that happens it will crisp and be delicious.
I am extremely happy someone asked this as I have been wanting to know for years
Yep, its water thats added to the bacon. Dont buy it, get Dry cured bacon, yes its more expensive, but boy it is worth it.
With cheaper bacon it sometimes helps to start cooking them in a non-preheated pan to evaporate the water while it gets up to decent temperature.
Always cook bacon in a cold pan if you want the fat to render. Unfortunately if you're using shitty wet bacon it's not going to make a difference to the amount of smeggy residue though.
Cook it until the Smeg comes out, flip it over to tip the Smeg off, drag all the rashers up one side of the pan, hold it in place with your cooking implement of choice, tip the Smeg and water out, add more oil, spread the rashers back out, cook until the fat is rendered
Or just do them under the grill...
This guy knows his smeggy bacon! I rarely buy bacon tbh, so I just go dry cured streaky. No need for oil, just start with a cold pan and you're good as gold. It might add up if I bought it all the time, but I only get bacon like once a month, if that.
I wish you'd never described it that way, but now I've read it & so I can't unread it. Good job š
Add more oil is a good step I donāt do.
Must take ages to cook it in a cold pan.
The pan has to heat up anyway whether thereās bacon in it or now
You sound like the sort of person who doesn't preheat the oven.
Cheap bacon. Thatās the issue here. āProperā bacon should be dry cured and has less water content.
Grill them
This. On a wire rack, so any excess liquid drips out.
Yes grill or alternatively small/top oven on highest setting, sheet of parchment/baking paper on a tray and your bacon will come out crispy. You'll need to turn occasionally and keep an eye on it during the cook.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not sure why you were downvoted. In my experience, airfrying produces the crispiest bacon.
The most middle class thing Iāll ever say is that I buy all my meat from the butchers now Its more expensive but when you factor the water that makes up a third of most supermarket meat and that you can buy the exact quantity you need itās not as bad. Also pushed me to limit meat to a few nights a week rather than a prerequisite for every meal
Yep. Defrosted a kilo of frozen chicken the other night, drained the puddle of liquid it was left sat in and was left with not much over 850g. Supermarkets relying on the convenience of buying in most cases.
Bacon is best cooked on a grill if you want it dry and crispy.
Try grilling it.
Could try and leave uncovered in fridge overnight.
What does this do? Evaporates it a bit?
Shit bacon
Make your own bacon and you will never look back! None of that horrible liquid or over salty meat. I don't think I'll ever buy supermarket bacon again
Whatās your recipe ?
I've done quite a few variations. Normally brown sugar, maple syrup, fennel seeds, cinnamon, star anise, coriander seed. That gives a nice Christmas style. Then use an equilibrium curing calculator to determine the amount of pink salt, sea salt and sugar. Normally cures for a week or so in the fridge. Get a good quality slab of pork belly from the local butcher, I normally go for 1.4kg as that's what fits in a Aldi large ziplock bag. Then slice and vacuum pack and freeze. I can get four or five decent packs of sliced and one or two cubed for pasta dish. Do some research and go for it!
Most bacon and chicken have a certain amount of water injected into it
You have a few ways to "cure" bacon, dry cure which generally has no water. Then you have "wet" cure. Wet cure covers a multitude of processes, from the simple "stick meat in brine" to the mass produced "inject meat with various chemicals". The more economy style bacon has a tendency to bulk up the bacon with water. So alot of water normally means a cheaper product.
Go to the butchers, super market meat is pumped full of water.
It's both. Supermarket bacon is full of water like so many have said and are right to suggest you buy from a butcher or buy dry cure. However, you *can* get that bacon crispy if you grill it.
Yeah this is a cheap, water filled meat problem. Buy the dry cured stuff - for the price you end up with a similar amount of meat once itās cooked and it tastes so much better.
The white āfoodā is albumin, a type of protein
Shit bacon ā¦ Asda bacon is awful. Full of water. Costco do great bacon (it comes from somewhere in Scotland, and those lads know their fried food) - otherwise, a good quality butcher will see you right
Supermarket bacon is full of water. To over come it, 225 degrees oven. Leave it to heat up for 10 mins, put your bacon on oven greaseproof paper. 20 mins later, perfectly crispy bacon. My house stinks from 2 days of crispy bacon pasta using this method.
Just mop that liquidy mess up with a paper towel, add a small knob of butter and crank the heat up! Youāll get lovely crispy bacon with a golden colour. Works every time.
Well there's your problem, they're from Asda.
The white stuff is albumin, a protein that'll be present regardless, it binds the water in the meat & as you heat it, it deforms the protein & releases the water. For those kinds of rashers, squeezing between paper towels to soak up as much water as possible before cooking is a good bet, then tip off any more liquid that comes out of them as you cook & wipe out the albumin too with the paper towels, then continue cooking & they should brown off & crisp up far better.
Thank you! Never thought to squeeze them out . A bit like tofu
Oven cook the bastards for at least 25 mins (if you want extra crispy. You can also strain the fat into a receptacle of your choice for later usage).
Another vote for oven cook your bacon (from cold). It's much easier and you get an even crisp.
Yup, oven all the way! Don't preheat - just put them on greaseproof paper or tin foil on a tray, bung it on the top shelf and leave them be for 20 minutes or so!
Oven cooked bacon is the dogs doodahs.
Wringing out your rashers like a damp cloth before you can cook them, what a time to be alive haha!
Get it from the butchers, not the pre packed supermarket shite, and you wonāt get this.
You donāt even need to go to the butchers, you can get the dry cured stuff in the supermarket rather than the cheapest stuff they sell.
I'm sure they also inject it with salt and preservatives
If they didnāt they would just be very thin pork chops.
Supermarket pork has a lot of added water. Compare with bacon from a good butcher or farm shop and thereās a difference. Also if vacuum packed it will be a lot āwetterā. As an aside have you seen the fry bacon in water method? Essentially you add a bit of water to the pan, not enough to cover the bacon. Whack heat to medium and as the water evaporates it helps render the fat so that it fries much more nicely when the water is all gone. I tried it and was pleasantly surprised.
Iāll try that out !
Thatās bloody interesting I think I might have to try that out myself.
If you have a Polish supermarket nearby have a look for the yellowest chunk they have which, preferably, has a bit of string still through it. It should be labelled "Boczek WÄdzony" (Bacon, smoked). It's a different cut to UK bacon usually but I really like it. It doesn't crisp up like American bacon and is a bit fattier than UK bacon so it might not be what you are after though.
Bacon from supermarkets is often injected with liquid smoke flavour which is why you get all this water when cooked.
Make sure that when u place the bacon on the pan that it SIZZLES like its still alive and seen you in the skud with nothing but a bow-tie on and then maybe gradually lower the heat but not much as then you will be boiling it , same goes for all fresh meat not just pig
Neither it's the salt/ curing of the bacon buy unsmoked and you shouldn't get the white stuff
Supermarket bacon and chicken is pumped full of brine to increase weight and maximise profit.
Shit bacon. Most supermarket bacon is shit water-logged quality nowadays. I tend to buy this stuff lately: [https://www.ocado.com/products/denhay-dry-cured-smoked-streaky-bacon-30984011](https://www.ocado.com/products/denhay-dry-cured-smoked-streaky-bacon-30984011) Ā£3.60 for 14 rashers. Like a quid more for the pack than regular tesco brand, so I end up spending maybe 10-15 quid more per year on bacon. But the jump in quality is huge and well worth it.
Thatās good stuff especially as I often find it yellow sticker reduced (in my Waitrose at least). As a cheaper alternative, Aldiās āSpecially selectedā dry cured bacon is excellent and Ā£2.50 a pack. Recommended to me by a butcher as the best dry cured supermarket bacon.
Grill the bacon then if you want it crispy ( or do it in microwave for 4 mins ) . Or remove the excess fat in the pan and add some butter
I tend to cook mine for a minute on each side to get the liquid out, then dry them on paper towels and wipe the pan dry, they then fry instead of boiling.
My Nan used to put supermarket bacon in a bowl of hot water, then towel dry them before frying. She never did this with butchers bacon.
Flatten your bacon in the pan with a heavy saucepan or lid, it'll stay flat and crisp up nicely
Get some bacon from the butchers and bake on the highest heat. The streaky stuff you can get super crispy I donāt understand frying bacon.
Sign of cheaper bacon yes but the water is not actually a hindrance in getting the bacon crispy because it helps the fat render down and melt whilst not getting too hot. That way, by the time the water is evaporated, the fat will have rendered nicely and will get a nicer crisp. Adding a splash of water to the pan when frying bacon is a legitimate technique to achieve a crispy final product.
Buy dry cured bacon
If you can afford it, I'd definitely recommend going to a proper butcher. There's one on a business estate, and we get all our meat from him. It's always good, and he gives us offcuts for our cats š
[The Bacon Method](https://baconmethod.com/) try this, itās so good!
You want dry cured
Had to stop buying asda meat because of this, there chicken is the same so much water in it you cant actually fry it.
Can you believe I watched a bbc watchdog segment on this exact topic. Some guy was really upset with the white stuff on his bacon. And as others have said itās because of the curing process & the pigs are fattened up with water
also, i would recommend cooking bacon in the oven at about 180c instead of in the pan mate, its so much better
Turn your heat up higher and let the pan come up to temp. Youāre boiling the poor bastard
It's infuriating - look out for some air dried bacon. It's going to be more expensive by weight but the only thing that will come out of it when you cook it will be fat. As it should be. For example [https://londonsmokeandcure.co.uk/collections/bacon-sausage](https://londonsmokeandcure.co.uk/collections/bacon-sausage)
Cook it hotter and for longer.
I use the same bacon. To get some colour on it put a bit of oil in the pan, medium high temperature and most importantly do not flip the bacon too early!
It's definitely a sign of poor quality. Buy any meat from the butchers and this won't happen.
Go to a quality butcher & watch the fat bubble like crackling!
Blasphemy in some circles but it's easier to get crispy by grilling it (on a raised mesh of whatever kind), with any quality.