How we cure bacon in ten days
21 May 2026 · By Priya Menon · Curing, Behind the scenes
Salt, sugar, juniper, time. No water, no phosphates, and no white foam in the pan.
Supermarket bacon is injected with brine because water is cheaper than pork. That is why it leaks grey liquid and steams instead of frying.
Ours is dry-cured. A belly gets rubbed with sea salt, brown sugar, crushed juniper and black pepper, then sits in a tray in the cold room. Every day for ten days it is turned and re-rubbed with the liquid it has drawn out of itself. By the end it has lost weight, not gained it, and the flesh is firm to the thumb.
Then it is rinsed, dried overnight until the surface goes tacky - that skin is what smoke sticks to - and cold-smoked over oak for six hours at under 25°C. Cold, so it is still raw when it comes out, just perfumed.
The result behaves differently in a pan. It browns in its own fat within two minutes and crisps rather than curls. It is also saltier than what you are used to, so go easy on seasoning whatever else is in the pan.
We cure a new batch every Monday. Thursday is usually when the previous batch runs out.