I was curing 10 lb of pork belly. I had to cut it into 2 x 5lb pieces and put it in a giant ziploc. I flipped for the past 8 days. But one side of 2 of these have a strange rust type color on the outside. This is on the meat side, not the fat side. Pic below. I plan to hot smoke.

Wondering if anyone has run into this. The belly smells okay but it does have a tiny bit of that "day old" type smell. No where near gone bad and I have to put my nose practically right on it to get any hint of smell that isn't great. It's almost like a steak that went a bit gray and isn't super fresh but isn't bad.

Lastly, I sliced a piece and cooked it and it tastes perfectly like unsmoked bacon. I was going to cold smoke but I think I'll hot smoke instead. Anyone see this type of color and is it an issue?

I trimmed it all off, and basically trimmed a very thin layer off the entire side and no more color issue, and the slightly off smell is gone. I think the smell was from the 2 sides of the belly facing eachother in the bag for a few days.

I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, probably was just where the meat laid onto the plastic of the bag more firmly than other spots and the oxygen or lack of caused a color change.

You used pink curing salt I assume?

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, probably was just where the meat laid onto the plastic of the bag more firmly than other spots and the oxygen or lack of caused a color change.

You used pink curing salt I assume?

Yes pink salt and salt calculated from the Makin Bacon website.

Nothing to worry about. I've been told it's an oxygen thing and my bacon always comes out great

Good to know. Thanks guys.

After a little smoke you won't be able to notice. As an aside I prefer a 4 day cure, have you experimented with a shorter cure time?

quote:

Originally posted by Stlhead:
After a little smoke you won't be able to notice. As an aside I prefer a 4 day cure, have you experimented with a shorter cure time?

No. The cure time I use is for a dry EQ cure so having enough time is imperative for safety. Generally 1 day per 1/4 inch thickness plus 2 days for safety. So my belly is about 1.5”. So 6 days plus 2.

That used to happen to me, nothing to worry about. When I brine cure multiple pieces of meat in the same vessel I put a small piece of plastic louvered ceiling tile between the meat pieces. Wash them up when the cure is complete and use them over and over. That stain has never happened to me again.

Its looks like salt scabbing. From where more salt.than was needed in that spot

You cannot safely wet age meat without pink salt. In a ziplock, it’s wet aging.

Frayedends, you have my email. Shoot me a message and I’ll give you my cell. Call me. I have aged a couple hundred pounds of meat by now. The majority being me making pastrami.

ETA, I just pulled up the email we were speaking in. I replied with my cell number.

It did have pink salt. Salt scabbing makes sense. The 2 portions of belly were on top of each other and likely salt was stuck there for a while.