bacon, phase one, take one

i recently bought charcuterie by ruhlman and polcyn, and today i started my first attempt at making bacon.  i got a 3.7 lb pork belly from whole foods and i rubbed it with:

• 50 grams of basic cure (8 parts salt, 7.6 parts dextrose, 1 part pink salt)
• 3 crushed bay leaves
• 10 grams cracked black peppercorns
• 5 crushed garlic

i put it in a 2 gallon ziploc bag and now it needs to cure for 7 days.  since i don't have a smoker my current plan is to cook the bacon in a sous vide bath (with some liquid smoke) after it's done curing.  (apologies in advance to all the actual bbq and smoker experts out there.)

my tasting assistant knows it's going to be a while before this will be ready.

mmm. pork. the king of meats. hopefully i can do it justice.

i didn't even know they made 2 gallon ziploc bags.