So I am curing some bacon - my third batch using small 1.5kg pieces of pork belly. The method is simple: cut skin off, rub in salt and a little brown sugar, put in a ziplock bag in the fridge and flip each day for five days then rinse thoroughly and then start the smoking process.
My first two were great, but very salty. Some googling suggested I was using too much salt. I really did pack in on and there was excess thrown in the bag too. For this current batch, I rubbed in what I could then let the excess shake off before bagging.
My question is: my latest method has extracted less than half of the juice of the first too. Is this normal and how can I tell if it's actually cured properly?