Susanna Freymark
It looks like bacon, it smells like bacon – the difference is the bacon from Stuart Bros Butchers comes from a cow.
Beef bacon is available at the Kyogle butcher for $26.99 a kilo.
Butcher Aidan Morton said the staff saw a post on social media about beef bacon.
“A few people from different cultures can’t eat pork,” Aidan said.
Traditionally, pork is used for bacon but “you can turn anything into bacon,” he said.
Stuart Bros uses beef brisket that comes from the sternum area of a grass fed cow to make its beef bacon.
Aidan said they trim the brisket and then use a pickle pump and inject salt, water, the cure and sugar into the meat.
The beef bacon is then soaked in a saline brine for three days.
“Then we smoke it for 10 hours,” Aidan said.
It’s quite a process and Aidan said it costs the same as ‘normal’ bacon.
IndyNR.com bought a large pack for $16.09.
We cooked it like regular bacon, and it came up juicy and crisp – the smell was good but not as strong as pork bacon.
We served bacon and egg on sourdough toast – and in the name of research, we ate it. It was tasty.
Australians seem to enjoy eating beef with an increase in meat consumption by 2.3% in 2023–24.
According to the internet, beef bacon had its commercial moment overseas when Perthshire Butchery in Scotland marketed its beef bacon line as lower fat and higher protein than pork bacon.
Stuart Bros Butchers are giving it go and will see how customers take to their new product.