Homemade bacon with reduced or no sugar?
We just made our first batch of homemade bacon from the recipe in Charcuterie. It was easy, looks and tastes fantastic. I should of course leave it there. Still, I would love to be able to cut down on the sugar--there's white sugar in the basic cure mix and brown sugar in the one added for bacon. How much does the sugar have to do with the preservation of the meat? Or is it just a taste issue?
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Actually just found this:
http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured...
and Ruhlman's response: ruhlman October 18, 2010 at 4:32 pm
"actually here it is just to balance out the salt, so ok to omit."
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are you asking whether the sugar serves a purpose in a cure or as a food preservative? if so, the answer is yes. if you are vegan or have other issues with refined sugar you can successfully use maple sugar etc. you could use less sugar and use artificial preservatives. you could reduce the sugar and hot or cold smoke the meat-- texture and taste will be affected. you could can or pickle the meat--texture and taste will be affected. you could essentially do an all-salt pack, as for some hams/barreled salt pork. imo many of these work-arounds would have a result that might be tasty, but would not be bacon. what result are you looking for? or, how much bacon are you eating at a sitting, that you would be concerned about the sugar content, specifically?
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re: soupkitten
Right, my question was mainly about whether the sugar is critical for preservation. It's actually quite a lot, IMO, if I add the brown sugar on top of the basic dry cure.
We do hot smoke the meat after the 7 days fridge cure and then 2-3 days of drying time.
I seem to remember having bought no sugar added bacon in the US at some point, so was thinking it might be possible.
We do eat a lot of bacon, and I'm pretty sensitive to sugar so I'd love to make it without or with less if it doesn't drastically (or dangerously) alter the outcome.
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