;)A friend of mine recently claimed that freezing bacon increased the salt content. Is there any truth in this, or was he just taking the piss?
Unless he freezes it in brine, no.
OK. Thanks for that. I couldn’t see how it could either. Or some of the moisture content would have to be extracted first.
Instruct him to subject bacon to many freeze/thaw cycles, increasing the salt content each time, out of thin (and cold) air. Then, he can scrape off the salt, and sell it. But really no, you can’t get something from nothing. I’ve seen bacon left in the fridge that I’d forgotten (forgive me, I was young and foolish,) dry out a bit, and some salt would crystallize on the surface. In the freezer a short time, properly wrapped won’t dry bacon out that much.
He may just be talking about the bacon drying out in the freezer. With lower water content, the concentration of salt will be higher and make the bacon taste saltier. I would think enough water content to make that noticeable would be a sign of low quality bacon.
This is how bacon salt is made.
Wow, I never heard that phrase before. Are you British?
The OP may or may not be British, but it’s certainly a very common phrase in the UK. So much so that when I started work in a hospital Urology department almost every single one of my friends attempted a joke along the lines of “so you’ll be taking the piss then?”