19lbs of belly in progress

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brandon91

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Mar 10, 2014
281
134
the pit
SO..

I have 14 8ft tall tomato plants growing atm so I'm in need of some serious bacon for BLTs this summer.

Rubbed down with dry cure and vac packed, using maple sugar @ 2%. Into the beer fridge, see you in 10 days.

It has been over 105F here for over 2 weeks and only signs of heating up, so I'm not sure how much of a cold smoke this will be 
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Will be interesting to see how the cold smoke works out in that temp - I am in Arkansas and at this point with the rain and temp pretty much conceded to wait until fall to cold smoke anything else. 

Also does the cure work well in a vacuum seal? 
 
Ended up pulling the bacon at 12 days instead of 10, cut a belly in half to make sure it cured properly and did a fry test. Came out perfectly. This is some really meaty bacon!


Hung the bellies in the MES40


Lit up the AMNPS with a layer of hickory and a layer of apple wood, some great smells

at this point. 


Some nice clean smoke coming out of the stack.


Going to smoke overnight I'm guessing 10-14 hours until it really starts to heat up outside then I'll pull it, followed by a 2-3 day rest.
 
 
Will be interesting to see how the cold smoke works out in that temp - I am in Arkansas and at this point with the rain and temp pretty much conceded to wait until fall to cold smoke anything else. 

Also does the cure work well in a vacuum seal? 
Ya I didn't think it would work well during the day so I'm doing it at night, we had a cooler week so it worked out. This is the temp the smoker is holding after 45min.

 
I envy you guys. Stuck making BBB instead of real bacon, as I can't find belly around here for reasonable price. $8/lb ain't gonna cut it.
 
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Smokin Phil, how much are pork butts in your area? I find a couple of fatty ones, and slice off the first 2" under the fat. Makes for a remarkable belly substitute. 
 
Smokin Phil, how much are pork butts in your area? I find a couple of fatty ones, and slice off the first 2" under the fat. Makes for a remarkable belly substitute. 

Pork butts are cheap. I can get then for $2 or less/lb. Right now they're $1.49/lb. I'll have to try that.
 
put 32 lbs. of belly into pop's brine....15 in a "slap-yo-momma-"Molasses brine and 15 into a Honey-=brown sugar brine...going to let them cure for 14 days in my $3500 brining frig (that I "stoled" from LOWES for $300).  I also am making a gallon of Limoncello (which also take 14 days to cure..)

Went into semi-retirement last week and now will have time to do what I want to do!!!

Paid $2.49 from my local Asian Market....they were asking $4.49 but I asked them to reduce the price and they did
 
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Just realized I completely forgot about this thread, only 4 months late. Lol. Here's how it turned out.
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