Day 10 and the pork bellies are out of the salt/sugar cure. Actually they are no longer pork bellies, they are, what is know as, “green bacon.” This is bacon that has been cured but not smoked yet. This stage is also known as salt pork.
The bacon has been rinsed and soaked a little to remove the salt. The process now requires the bacon air dry on a rack in the refrigerator until tomorrow. After work it will get smoked for an hour or so and then it’s ready to eat.
Here are a few shots of the bacon out of the cure. It sure looks good.
All rinsed and on the rack ready for air drying in the refrigerator.
Close up of the end cut.
Wow, what an intense color! It looks mighty tasty already!