Curing a bone-in pork belly is a first in the Scrumptious Chef test kitchen. While we’ve done dozens of bellies over the past decade this marks the first time we’ve tackled one that included the bones.

Bone-in pork belly is not something we regularly see in the butcher shops we haunt but we were on a remote farm in Madison County, Alabama when we scored the meat, and the rules are a mite different in those parts.

Beginning in 1971, Henry Fudge has authored an intense Duroc hog breeding program near the Tennessee border of north Alabama, and by many estimates is producing the finest pork in all of the U.S.

Recently Fudge went with a new slaughterhouse and in all the madness that comes with breaking in a new butcher he received a score of pork bellies that had not had the bones removed.

We’re always looking for a fresh challenge so we were happy to take two of the bone-in slabs off Fudge’s hands.

Ingredients

1 each 9.65lb bone-in pork belly (4377.14 grams)

Cure #1 (at 6.25% nitrite) 10.93 grams

Salt, Kosher 77.3 grams

Method

Combine salt and nitrite

Sprinkle over belly, be thorough, make certain every square mm is covered

Place in refrigerator, either on a wire rack above a catch pan or mummified in plastic wrap (we used wrap)

Flip belly once every 24 hours for 10 days

Remove belly from fridge, wash thoroughly (we spend 3-5 minutes running cold water over belly)

Place back in fridge on clean wire rack and allow to dry for 12-24 hours

Now it’s time to smoke your belly. We have a cache of all sorts of woods that we’ve scored from area farms. In this instance we used dry-cured Louisiana pecan from old growth trees that were chopped down about five years ago.

Build fire in smoker

When fire goes to embers place pork belly on opposite side of fire

Open vent over belly and allow to smoke for 2-4 hours (internal belly temp of 150 degrees)

Return belly to fridge