Bacon, Irish Rashers, Dry-Cured

A rasher is NOT American bacon - it is a different cut of the pig. Back bacon: the lean round eye of the pork loin plus a tapered fattier tail from the belly, in one slice. American bacon is belly only. This is the substitution that most changes the breakfast. Equilibrium (EQ) dry cure at 0.25% Cure #1 = exactly 156 ppm nitrite, comfortably under the 200 ppm federal ceiling for dry-cured bacon.

Ingredients

• 1000 g pork loin WITH THE BELLY TAIL ATTACHED, skin off, fat cap left on
• 2.5 g Cure #1 (Prague Powder #1, 6.25% sodium nitrite) - 0.25%, gives 156 ppm
• 20 g fine sea salt, non-iodized (2.0%)
• 10 g soft brown sugar (1.0%)
• 2 g black peppercorns, cracked
• 2 g juniper berries, crushed (optional)
• 2 bay leaves, crumbled (optional)

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Salt

1. Weigh the trimmed meat precisely. Every number scales from it. A scale accurate to 1 g is mandatory. DO NOT use volume measures for Cure #1 - this is the one step where a mistake actually matters.
2. Mix the cure, salt, sugar and aromatics thoroughly. Thoroughly - pockets of concentrated Cure #1 are exactly what you are avoiding.
3. Rub over all surfaces. Bag it with ALL the cure - scrape in every grain. The ppm calculation assumes none is lost.
4. Refrigerate at 2-4 C for 5-7 days, turning daily and redistributing the liquid that draws out. Do not discard that liquid - it holds cure. (Rule of thumb: about 1 day per 5 mm of thickness plus 2 days. That rule of thumb is conventional wisdom, not sourced to an authority.)
5. Rinse briefly and pat dry.
6. Form a pellicle: uncovered on a rack in the fridge for 24 hours, until the surface is dry and tacky.
7. Unsmoked (“plain” or “green”) is the Irish default - stop here. For smoked: cold smoke under 30 C / 86 F for 3-6 hours. Cold smoking has its own safety envelope not covered here - the meat is cured but uncooked, and time/temperature control matters.
8. Chill thoroughly, then slice about 3-4 mm - noticeably thicker than American bacon. Part-freeze 30-45 minutes and slicing gets far easier.
9. Cook in cast iron over medium. Render the fat, brown the edges, and DO NOT CHASE CRISP - it is mostly lean loin. Eat with a knife and fork.

Notes

The cut is the whole thing

Ask the butcher for a pork loin with the belly tail still attached - a full “back rack,” skin off, fat cap on. If they look blank, ask for a thick bone-in loin chop section with the bone removed and all fat left untrimmed. If you can only get loin, you will make Canadian bacon, not a rasher. THE BELLY TAIL IS THE RASHER.

The nitrite arithmetic, shown so you can check it

• Prague Powder #1 = 6.25% sodium nitrite, 93.75% salt.
• At 0.25% of meat weight: 1000 g meat -> 2.5 g Cure #1 -> 2.5 x 0.0625 = 0.15625 g sodium nitrite = 156.25 mg/kg = 156 ppm.
• 156 ppm is comfortably under the 200 ppm ceiling for DRY CURED bacon (9 CFR 424.22(b)) and is the long-standing industry-standard rate.
• To hit the immersion-cured 120 ppm figure instead: 1.92 g Cure #1 per kg (about 0.19%).

Legal limits (9 CFR 424.22(b)), skin-free green weight

• Dry cured bacon: 200 ppm max ingoing sodium nitrite
• Immersion cured bacon: 120 ppm
• Pumped/massaged bacon: 120 ppm PLUS 550 ppm sodium ascorbate/erythorbate
• Nitrate in bacon: NOT PERMITTED

A REAL TRAP

An otherwise excellent AMSA-reviewed factsheet says “dry-cured products are allowed to have 625 ppm sodium nitrite, in-going.” That is true for dry-cured products GENERALLY (hams etc.). But 9 CFR 424.22(b) sets dry-cured BACON at 200 ppm. FOR BACON, 200 PPM GOVERNS. Read in isolation that line could lead someone to over-cure by a factor of three. Bacon is a special case in the regulations because of nitrosamine formation during frying.

Why nitrite at all

It is botulism control, not decoration - effective at inhibiting anaerobic spore formers including Clostridium botulinum. Establishing a MINIMUM ingoing nitrite concentration is considered critical to product safety. Also: “uncured” celery-powder bacon IS chemically cured - USDA labelling rules force the “uncured” wording, and natural cures may inhibit C. botulinum less well.

Why EQ and not a brine

An over-strength immersion brine with a time limit means the nitrite the meat actually receives depends on how much brine it happens to absorb - you cannot compute the ingoing ppm. With EQ curing every gram you add ends up in the meat, so the ppm is exactly known and cannot run away. Leave it an extra day and nothing bad happens.

Honesty label

The cure chemistry and ppm arithmetic are sound and checkable; the flavourings and timing are conventional. I have dry-cured plenty of pork but have not run this exact formula on this exact cut.

Keeping: cured and unsmoked, refrigerated, roughly 1-2 weeks; freeze beyond that (not verified against an authority).

See Irish Breakfast, The Full.