Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Don't forget a pair of these, endless uses for them and not just in the kitchen.  They clock in at about 18 inches long I think.

Does anyone else here make your own bacon?

Just cured >10# of pork belly. That'll sit 10-14 days, at which point I can smoke it, then slice, then vacuum seal in smaller portions and toss in the freezer so I have a bunch on hand.

It's amazing how easy it is, and how much better it is than store-bought.

And I keep hearing about these "bacon rib" things from LeRoy and Lewis in Austin, and thinking I might need to make that myself (although I didn't source bone-in pork belly)...

Oh and as for homemade bacon, I've never done it but color me intrigued.  Got any more specific details on how to do it? 

• Buy pork belly. I find it at Costco as full slabs, usually try to pick the largest they have (>10#). 
• Because I use a vacuum sealer and gallon bags only fit about 1/3 of a slab, I cut it into 3 roughly equal pieces. 
• I use this calculator to determine curing: http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
• I mix the cure based on the weight of each 1/3 slab, and usually add fresh cracked black pepper. You can buy curing salt from Amazon super cheap for 1#, and 1# of curing salt will last you decades unless you're producing hundreds of pounds of bacon per year.
• Slather the cure equally (to the extent you can) around the slabs, vacuum seal them, and put them in the fridge. Flip daily(ish), but it's no big deal if you miss a day or two.
• Let them sit in the fridge (w/ flipping) 10-14 days. 
• Put them on a smoker @225 or so until they reach an internal temp of 155-160F. 
• Remove and chill to cold. (Cold aids in slicing). 
• Slice to appropriate thickness. This is the hardest part if you don't have a good meat slicer, because doing it by hand with a knife takes decent knife skills. But I do it by hand and it's not like I'm chef-level with a knife. 
• Vacuum seal and freeze the slices in appropriate portions, then thaw and cook as you normally would. 

Really simple.

• Buy pork belly. I find it at Costco as full slabs, usually try to pick the largest they have (>10#).
• Because I use a vacuum sealer and gallon bags only fit about 1/3 of a slab, I cut it into 3 roughly equal pieces.
• I use this calculator to determine curing: http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
• I mix the cure based on the weight of each 1/3 slab, and usually add fresh cracked black pepper. You can buy curing salt from Amazon super cheap for 1#, and 1# of curing salt will last you decades unless you're producing hundreds of pounds of bacon per year.
• Slather the cure equally (to the extent you can) around the slabs, vacuum seal them, and put them in the fridge. Flip daily(ish), but it's no big deal if you miss a day or two.
• Let them sit in the fridge (w/ flipping) 10-14 days.
• Put them on a smoker @225 or so until they reach an internal temp of 155-160F.
• Remove and chill to cold. (Cold aids in slicing).
• Slice to appropriate thickness. This is the hardest part if you don't have a good meat slicer, because doing it by hand with a knife takes decent knife skills. But I do it by hand and it's not like I'm chef-level with a knife.
• Vacuum seal and freeze the slices in appropriate portions, then thaw and cook as you normally would.

There are certainly other things you can do. AmazingRibs has a couple recipes on different flavors you can imbue the bacon with. However, don't pay any attention to the various things AmazingRibs says about how dry cure calculators are horrible and unsafe and that you can ONLY use what they say for a wet cure... If you're curing in a vacuum sealed bag, it's a wet cure even if you don't add any additional liquid. In fact, their calculator if you put in 0 ml of additional liquid gives the same cure proportions as what I linked.