Before you begin, skin and bone the meat if required, then consider cutting the pork up into manageable pieces. I prefer to do lumps that fit into a gallon sizes ziplock bag - usually 2 x 1.5kg bits from a 3kg lump.
Mix all the dry ingredients together to make the cure and coat the meat.
Carefully drop the meat into a bag and drizzle a generous amount of maple syrup over it and carefully massage the syrup to coat.
Pop it in the fridge. The next day the cure will be working and have gone a bit sludgy. Add a good slug of bourbon (Jack Daniels or similar) and massage.
Make sure the cure is in contact with the meat by folding any extra plastic under or around on itself - ideally secure with a rubber band.
Turn every day for a fortnight - congrats, your pork is now bacon!
Gently wash off the cure under a cold tap and pat dry - the aim is to lightly rinse it rather than scrub it clean!
Keep it on a cake rack in the fridge for a couple of days to dry out a bit, put the rack over a a tray or plate with some salty water and keep the fat side up and ideally loosely cover with a bit of baking paper - this creates a microclimate that should help avoid it developing a hard outer that can be a problem in modern frost free fridges.
Ideally if you have the kit, then cold smoke over a strong wood like oak for min 8 hours.
Wrap in peach paper (like a non-waxy butchers paper) and leave to mature in the fridge for at least another week. We need that smoky flavour so subside a touch and the bacon to harden up slightly.
For US style bacon: Give the bacon another light dusting of house rub then put in a hot smoker with more oak chunks at 225 F for 3-4 hours. Baste with a little more maple/bourbon mix for the last half hour.
