What's the difference between wet cured and dry cured bacon?
Wet curing is injecting pork with a cocktail of brine and chemicals. Its fast and cheap, taking just a few hours to produce and leads to a poorer product. We find it in cheap imported bacon and is typically what is found on the supermarkets shelves or bulk packs at discount butchers .
Compare this to dry cured bacon, the traditional way in traditional way quality farmshop, high street and online butchers make it. Each pork back should be cured by hand rubbing a curing mixture containing sugar and salt. After approximately a week, the meat will have cured, then it is hung in air drying chambers for up to 21 days to remove the excess water, giving a really meaty texture and an unbeatable flavour. This tradition is the same today as it was 2 centuries ago and ensures a great tasting rasher of bacon.
Are you worried you won’t spot the difference? If taste isn’t enough of an indicator of the quality, watch it cook! If you begin to see loads of white liquid forming in the pan, then you have wet cured bacon – what you see leaking out is the water that’s been pumped in to increase the weight.
So don’t sell yourself short, buy British dry cured from your local or online butcher so you are supporting them and the pork farmers too.
At The Cheshire Butcher and Farm Shop we are proud to use the hand cured method with our locally sourced pork give you the best of all worlds. Why not set up your own taste test?