Curing bacon... Will it be any good?

If he was curing it in a fridge, it won't be "bad" anyway. If anything it may be lacking some penetration to the middle, which you may or may not see by a color change in the meat from center to edge when you cut it.. If it didn't cure all the way through, the middle may be much less flavorful than the edges, but otherwise unnoticeable.. The only thing to worry about if it didn't get fully cure with Nitrite is if you were to cold smoke it for very long periods of time, like days, you could grow some nasties in there, but that is pretty unlikely too.

That being said, I'm sure its fine. I know guys who cure like that in the fridge on cookie sheets all the time.

What ^^ said.

Even if you cold smoke and the center of the meat fills with lethal levels of botulism toxins, frying the bacon to over 80C or 176F will destroy the toxin. Just don't eat it rare.

That said, 9 days with cure on should be more than enough to penetrate so the risk level is very low.

I cure bacon in Tupperware containers, I flip once a day for 9 or 10 days. My containers are just a little bigger then he slabs I cure, maybe 2" of extra space, by day 3 or 4 the liquid is about halfway up the side of the belly. Works fine for me, just have to make sure it cores long enough that the whole belly firms up and there's no soft spots

m-fine said:

Even if you cold smoke and the center of the meat fills with lethal levels of botulism toxins, frying the bacon to over 80C or 176F will destroy the toxin. Just don't eat it rare.

That said, 9 days with cure on should be more than enough to penetrate so the risk level is very low.

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From my understanding the botulism toxin and spores are two very different things...the toxin will be destroyed by cooking thoroughly but the spores are very heat resistant and difficult to destroy under normal cooking conditions. I don't know if the spores can then produce the toxin if ingested, but I'm not taking that risk. I wouldn't recommend counting on cooking to make questionable food safe.

The danger from the spores is that once the food cools down and you vacuum seal it or can it, the bacteria can return. Spores can be killed at temps over 130C with the time needed decreasing with higher temps.

Lots of foods contain the spores, but they are not a danger to someone over 1 year old. That is why pediatricians will tell you not to give honey to an infant but it is not a risk to children or adults.

m-fine said:

The danger from the spores is that once the food cools down and you vacuum seal it or can it, the bacteria can return. Spores can be killed at temps over 130C with the time needed decreasing with higher temps.

Lots of foods contain the spores, but they are not a danger to someone over 1 year old. That is why pediatricians will tell you not to give honey to an infant but it is not a risk to children or adults.

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So eating just the spores isn't an issue for most people, The issue is the spores being present and then given the proper condition to grow into bacteria? Which would then be an issue when eating foods that aren't cooked properly? Am i on the right track now?

krex1010 said:

So eating just the spores isn't an issue for most people, The issue is the spores being present and then given the proper condition to grow into bacteria? Which would then be an issue when eating foods that aren't cooked properly? Am i on the right track now?

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The spores are dangerous because they can turn into active bacteria which can produce a (very) deadly toxin.

The bacteria needs proper conditions to grow and produce the toxin, and we have a number of rules and methods to combat that, including the 40-140 4 hour rule, the use of nitrates, canning with acids etc. Salt or refrigeration won't kill it, but will slow it down so you have much more than 4 hours before it goes bad and nitrates in sufficient concentration are lethal. It also needs an oxygen free environment so canning and vacuum sealing are your primary risks, but the inside of sausages or thick meats can be an issue as well.

Heat will kill the bacteria (properly cooked) and more heat will denature the toxin (well done, as in higher temps than we often reach with grilling and BBQ) and even higher temps will kill the spores.

With most BBQ we avoid the conditions where bacteria has the time to produce the toxin because we are not cooking to high enough internal temps to kill the spores and often we don't cook or reheat hot enough to denature the toxin.

Frying bacon on a 350 degree griddle is an exception. Because it is thin slices and the way we typically cook and eat it, internal temps will usually easily exceed 176F to destroy the toxin and then it tastes so good, we eat it long before the spores could become an issue again.

Would I serve it to my kids or pregnant (I sure hope NOT!) wife? Yes, as well done fried bacon. I wouldn't chop it up raw and use it dishes not heated to 180+ though. With the presence of salt and cure for 9 days in the fridge, I think the risk his bacon is not cured is extremely low, but I don't know how the cure was prepared and applied and did not see how it was held, so to be extra safe, I would just make sure it gets fully heated above 180 before eating it.

Aceman said:

So leaving out the trivial stuff here, will it be safe?

Say, hypothetically, your wifey was 4 months pregnant! ;-);-)

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Short answer: heat to over 180 (fry?) and eat within 4 hours of it cooling below 140.

Alternatively, give some center slices to your mother in law and wait a few hours to see if she survives.

m-fine said:

Short answer: heat to over 180 (fry?) and eat within 4 hours of it cooling below 140.

Alternatively, give some center slices to your mother in law and wait a few hours to see if she survives.

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You seem to be well versed on this, so let me ask you this question...is it true that bacon is technically not a high risk food for botulism since it's a whole cut of meat? Meaning any botulism present would be due to contact and would be on the surface, unlike a sausage where meat surface gets ground and mixed and could end up in the center of a sausage where conditions for growth are ideal?

krex1010 said:

You seem to be well versed on this, so let me ask you this question...is it true that bacon is technically not a high risk food for botulism since it's a whole cut of meat? Meaning any botulism present would be due to contact and would be on the surface, unlike a sausage where meat surface gets ground and mixed and could end up in the center of a sausage where conditions for growth are ideal?

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The short answer is technically yes. Definitely much lower risk than sausage, but it CAN get into a piece of meat, especially if you poke and prod it or stick a temp probe in it etc.

Aceman said:

So leaving out the trivial stuff here, will it be safe?

Say, hypothetically, your wifey was 4 months pregnant! ;-);-)

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Yes. Cook it, eat it, good to go. When I'm unsure on something (my first 6 week Umai bag dry aged beef for example), I'll take random samples from here and there when cutting it up, and cook and eat some myself a day before serving to my wife/kids etc. I'm talking about things I'm sure are fine but need 100% certainty before giving to others; not risky stuff that has even a remote possibility of being spoiled. That chit goes to my noisy, trashy neighbors. They're tough buggers though, haven't seen an ambulance yet. Oh well, if at first you don't succeed.....

I had no issues with a belly I cured for two weeks (life got in the way of me smoking it when planned!) ...

The answer to your question requires a little more information, so let me continue so you can make your own decision.

If the bags leaked as in a few drips a day, and then he moved them into the container with the liquids from the bag, turning them daily, then you should be fine. However if all the liquid leaked out before moving them to a container, or he discarded the liquids when he put the bellies in the container, then I would have some reservations.

Human botulism, caused by ingestion of contaminated food, is a rare but potentially fatal disease if not diagnosed rapidly and treated with an antitoxin.

Botulinum toxins are one of the most lethal substances known. These toxins are a poison to the central nervous system.

Botulism is odorless and colorless, the spores can be destroyed with heat as indicated below, but not the toxins.

https://www.google.com/#q=destroying+botulinum+toxin+with+heat

Though spores of Clostridium botulinum are heat-resistant, the toxin produced by bacteria growing out of the spores under anaerobic conditions is destroyed by holding at internal temperature over 85°C for at least five minutes or longer. (85°C is 185°F)

As Krex1010 said, bacon itself is not a high risk food for botulism, the issue of concern is whether the cure completely leaked out of the bag, or was discarded when putting them into the containers.

The fact that only half of the meat was covered with the liquid and he flipped daily is just fine.

IamMadMan said:

Heat will not destroy the toxins any more than heat will destroy arsenic or cyanide, unless you burn them in a fire.

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I must STRONGLY disagree with this statement. The toxin is not like an inorganic poison as it is protien based and is easily denatured beginning at 80C or 176F.

From the Center for Food Safety and Public Health:

"Botulinum toxins are large, easily denatured proteins.
Toxins exposed to sunlight are inactivated within 1 to 3
hours. They can also be inactivated by treating with 0.1%
sodium hypochlorite or 0.1 N NaOH, as well as by heating
to 80°C (176°F) for 20 minutes or to greater than 85°C
(185°F) for at least 5 minutes. The toxin’s heat resistance
varies with the medium, its pH and the concentration of the
toxin. In beef broth, type E toxin was reported to be
inactivated within 1 to 9 minutes at 80°C (176°F), with the
longest survival time at pH 5.0 and the shortest survival
time at the pH extremes (pH 3.5 or 6.8). The World Health
Organization (WHO) recommends boiling food for a few
minutes to inactivate botulinum toxins. Chlorine and other
disinfectants can destroy the toxins in water."

(bottom right column of page 3)

http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factsheets/pdfs/botulism.pdf

Plenty of good info in that PDF if you are interested in botulism.

Aceman said:

The cure was still in the bag and then transfered to the containers along with the meat. It was then flipped daily. So thank you for easing my concerns. In the actual recipe, he tells you to squeeze out the air. By doing this it sits in the cure 360*. I figured the cure penitrates both sides equally, vs one side daily; thus taking 14-20 days instead of 7-10 days.

Thanks, Aceman

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Then everything will be fine and there was a cover on the container. yes, removing the air from a bag makes a perfect environment. In the container the process of equalization still takes place, and the turning keeps the meat in the curing process.

I have had many bags of Bacon curing that virtually produce little or no significant liquids of any kind..

m-fine said:

I must STRONGLY disagree with this statement. The toxin is not like an inorganic poison as it is protien based and is easily denatured beginning at 80C or 176F.

From the Center for Food Safety and Public Health:

"Botulinum toxins are large, easily denatured proteins.
Toxins exposed to sunlight are inactivated within 1 to 3
hours. They can also be inactivated by treating with 0.1%
sodium hypochlorite or 0.1 N NaOH, as well as by heating
to 80°C (176°F) for 20 minutes or to greater than 85°C
(185°F) for at least 5 minutes.

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Thank you for that information, I stand corrected.