Hot-Smoked Pork Belly Recipe (Wammerl)
- Type
- Ham
- Level
- Easy
- Rating
- Rate this recipe
Today I’m going to show you how to make hot smoked pork belly. With a moderate amount of effort, you can achieve a super tasty result.
The hot smoked pork belly impresses with its intense smoky flavor and juicy texture. The pork belly is wet-cured before smoking.
The finished pork belly can be served warm or cold, either fried in thick slices like bacon or wafer-thin on delicious bread. It is important that you remove the rind beforehand.
Here you can find the complete hot smoked pork belly recipe as a video or to read through.
Have fun and good luck making it!
Table of Contents
Hot smoked pork belly – What do you need to make it?
Ingredients per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| pork belly | 1,000 g | 100 % |
Spices per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| salt | 110.5 g |
| sugar | 20 g |
| Cure #1 | 9.5 g |
| caraway seeds | 3 g |
| garlic granules | 2.5 g |
| black pepper | 2 g |
| Water | 1 L |
The equipment to make hot smoked pork belly
Injection Needle + Syringe
In order to inject the brine into the meat (the process ensures that the meat remains juicy), you will need a roasting syringe. If you don’t have one yet, you can buy one inexpensively.
Smoker
You will need the smoker to smoke your pork belly.
Make hot smoked pork belly – Step-By-Step Instructions
Put all the spices in a saucepan with the water and bring the brine to the boil briefly. Leave to infuse for 20-30 minutes and then leave to cool.
When the brine is cold, you can pour it through a sieve so that you don’t have any pieces in the brine. Optionally also through a kitchen towel.
Now inject 20 – 25 % brine into the pork belly using a syringe. You can stop as soon as you notice that the brine is leaking out more and more. My tip: Weigh the pork belly for this. This will give you a good overview.
Then place the pork belly with the remaining brine in a resealable bag.
Now squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible. Try not to squeeze the pork belly too much (otherwise the brine will leak out again). You can then seal the bag.
The pork belly must now be cured in the fridge for at least 3 days (if you have a larger piece, you will need to cure it for longer). Important: Turn the pork belly every day so that the brine can penetrate from all sides and spread well.
Pat the meat dry with a kitchen towel. Then insert a hook into the piece of cured meat. This will make it easier to hang up afterwards. Alternatively, you can also hang the pork belly with kitchen twine.
Hang your pork belly in the smoker and dry it for approx. 30 minutes at 50 °C (122 °F) without smoke.
After 30 minutes, increase the temperature to 80 °C (176 °F) and smoke the ham for approx. 1 hour.
After an hour, increase the temperature to 110 – 120 °C (230.0 – 248.0 °F) and continue smoking the pork belly until it has reached a core temperature of approx. 78 – 80 °C (172.4 – 176 °F).
Your hot smoked pork belly is ready 😄. Enjoy the taste.
Frequently asked questions
What is the brine for, and why inject it?
What is the brine for, and why inject it?
The brine is doing two jobs at once. It seasons the belly all the way through instead of only around the outside, and it holds water in the meat, which is what keeps a hot-smoked belly juicy when it goes up to the temperatures step 10 asks for. A dry rub on a piece this thick would still be sitting on the surface days later.
That thickness is also why it gets injected as well as soaked. Brine travels through meat slowly, and a belly is deep enough that the middle would be the last part to hear about it — injecting puts the brine there on the first day rather than the last. Weigh the belly before you start, as step 3 says, because what you inject is a share of its own weight and you cannot judge that by eye.
Two things around it are worth getting right. Let the brine go properly cold before it meets the meat, or you are warming the belly at exactly the wrong moment. And turn the bag every day, so the piece is not lying in one spot with the brine pooling underneath it.
How long is the shelf life of the hot smoked pork belly?
How long is the shelf life of the hot smoked pork belly?
Your pork belly will keep for about a week in the fridge. The alternative is to vacuum-seal the pork belly in portions. It should keep for 2-3 weeks in the fridge if vacuum-sealed. You can also freeze it. This increases the shelf life many times over.
Don’t forget to eat it with mustard. (Pork belly)