I wonder why my bacon became rancid.

I cured a slab of pork belly and hung it up a year ago. Today I diced some up to cook it with brussel sprouts and man it was rancid. I wonder what I screwed up.

I combined one part sugar with one part salt to extract moisture from the meat before I hung it but the sea salt I used was way more coarse than the turbinado sugar. Perhaps not enough salt was in contact with the meat causing something to get messed up?

Any thoughts?

Smoke?

Are you asking if smoke has been present in my kitchen or if I smoked the meat?

I didn't smoke the meat.

Normal cooking smoke has been exposed to the meat in my poorly ventilated apartment kitchen. Maybe that caused it?

I was wondering if you smoked the bacon at all. It's not a necessity, but I'm sure it would have helped to preserve it a little better.

When you say you cured it, could you give more details about the process? Knowing the steps you took exactly might be helpful in determining the point where there was a problem.

It is not clear from your post - was this the first time you used any? If you used it before and it was good, when was the last time you had used it?

I can't imagine having bacon hanging in my kitchen untouched for a year - it would be used up long before that time, assuming it was not bad from the beginning.