We are asked this question quite often and we’re more than happy to explain the difference. All Our bacon is dry cured.
What’s the difference between dry cured bacon and injected bacon?
Dry (adj): Free or relatively free from moisture or liquid and especially water.
Dry (noun): The process or an instance of drying.
So by definition, our process is drying the pork to produce a dry product free from added water.
All sounds good but how is bacon dry cured?
We dry cure our bacon by taking our British pork and massage the curing salts into it. Then the clever bit. Firstly the salt pulls some of the moisture out to allow for some of the salt to move in. This doesn’t happen over-night but approximately over 21 days. The outcome is that this leaves the right amount of moisture and the right amount of salt in the pork to develop the characteristic flavours.
How do we control how much goes in and out?
So there lies the skill which has taken us many years to perfect!
Injection Process For Bacon
The injection process for bacon is quite different to dry curing bacon. Note: we never use this process!
The pork is passed through an injector that pumps brine into the pork through sets of needles.
Brine is made up of salt and water which will now be in the pork. Add a little time and there you have it – Bacon. It is a much quicker, easier and cheaper process.
It doesn’t take much to work out that not only is the original moisture still there but the added water, salt and a few additives are there too, to keep it all together.
And so now for the bit that we really don’t relish.
When that bacon is cooked the heat causes the brine to be released. The result of this is that you get the familiar white residue in the pan, and the bacon shrinks. This is one of the reasons why we do not inject our bacon, but only dry cure it.
We are pleased to say our Dry Cured Bacon is the choice of our customers.
Buy our dry cured bacon online and you can see and taste the difference.
