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The before and after on my shop's pork belly...
For years, we just sold it as a big slab. Last month, my nephew started helping out and asked why we didn't try making our own bacon. We cured a test batch for 7 days with a simple brown sugar mix and smoked it low for 4 hours. The difference is wild... we went from moving maybe 10 slabs a week to selling out of 40 pounds of house bacon in two days. Anyone have a good tip for scaling up a small smokehouse cure without losing that flavor?
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iris9273mo ago
Scaling up a small smokehouse cure without losing that flavor" is a fantasy. You got lucky with a test batch. That homemade charm always falls apart when you try to make it big. The equipment you need to do forty pounds consistently will kill the very thing people liked. Stick to the slabs, that's your real business.
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miles_burns3mo ago
Hard disagree. Scaling up is a process problem, not a magic trick. Plenty of small shops nail it by focusing on time and smoke control over fancy gear. You just can't rush it with bigger batches. Saying it's impossible feels like giving up before you even try.
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robin59125d ago
That 7 day cure hitting its stride reminds me of how every home cook I know swears their chili tastes better on day two or three. There's something about time and patience that just can't be replaced by bigger equipment or fancier methods. Your nephew might've actually stumbled onto the secret most businesses forget, that good flavor is often just a matter of letting the process breathe instead of rushing it.
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