Getting all of the ingredients together is easy but getting the "pink salt" was the only "difficult" part. Although it is easily purchased online, there are a couple of variants in naming of this curing salt. You'll see: "pink salt", InstaCure™ #1, InstaCure™ #2, Prague Powder #1, TenderQuick™, Himalayan Pink Sea Salt (you don't want this one) so it's a bit of a curing jigsaw puzzle to wade through.

It turns out that InstaCure™ #1/Prague Powder #1 and "pink salt" are all the same things and are the ones to use for bacon (and some if not most other curing purposes). If you're game, The Sausage Maker website has a fabulous selection of all kinds of meat preserving ingredients and gear. You can also ask your local butcher shop if they'll sell you some. Shops that make their own sausage generally have pink salt and inquiring may speed you on your way to bacon nirvana...

it's all a beautiful bacon landscape (photo by wm. christman)

The basic operation for fresh bacon is broken down into three steps: curing, roasting, slicing. No, it's really that simple. You don't need a smoker or any fancy equipment. You need to to know how to 1) weigh out dry ingredients, 2) how to dredge, 3) how to slow-roast, and 4) how to wait (more on that in a minute).

Michael Ruhlman's book Charcuterie is an excellent resource for the finer details of making fresh bacon among a myriad of other things. While you're contemplating a book purchase, I'll just cover the bacon-o-rific highlights:

As with bread baking, weighing dry ingredients for curing is crucial. It's the key to getting the correct ratio of pink salt to regular salt and sugar is important to a good "cure". Too much pink salt will over-salt and kill the taste of the meat; too little will not cure the meat completely which can result in potential unpleasant bacteria growth that can kill you. Getting a good, even coat of the cure is equally important. Beyond that, you're stashing the pork belly in the fridge in a zip-seal-style plastic bag for 7-10 days (ZipLock™ makes a 2 gallon bag that is perfect for a 4-5 pound piece of pork belly.). Remember that "waiting" part I mentioned above? This phase one of "the wait".

Once you've navigated the 7-10 long days (daydreaming of your next killer BLT), you check the meat for firmness (the cure will penetrate the meat and firm it up - it's good to get an idea of how "squishy" the meat is just before you dredge it in cure to compare). If it's reasonably "firm" in it's thickest place, then you wash, dry then roast it. This phase two of the 'waiting" and even more difficult than the wait for the "cure", as the smell of your kitchen while the bacon is roasting will make it even harder. Easy now...just 2-3 hours to go.

bacon stilllife with skin and knife (photo by wm. christman)

Once your bacon reaches it's target temperature (150°F), all that's left is to cut the skin off and let it cool. And yes, now you can actually EAT some of the fresh, hot bacon. Don't go nuts though because once the bacon is cooled and sliced, you're going to want to horde it like a squirrel with winter nuts or give it away to share the wealth. You'll probably do both. And as soon as you get down to about 1/2 pound left, you'll be plotting your next pork belly purchase. No. Really.

The bacon you see here is a maple cured version. I added maple syrup to the bag after dredging it but the rest of the process was the same. I think I was able to keep the 4 1/2 pounds of fresh bacon around for about 5 days as I continually taste tested it (haha) and gave lots of it away. Since then, I have made several and have not had to buy packaged or butcher shop bacon since. And now I've got a small cadre of folks asking when the next bacon will be ready. Um, let's see...better schedule a trip to the butcher.