Hello All,
I've had 3 different pieces of belly curing in different cure/brine recipes and also did some CB from a chunk of leg that was cut up. It was cheap and thought it would be good to use to try out some CB. Loin was 5.99 at my local QFC!
All were cured for 10 - 12 days. The CB dried in the fridge for 48 hrs, the bellies for 60 hrs. My first bacon try turned out acrid and I feared it was due to not letting a pellicle form well enough, along with too much white smoke.
Pops Brine
Bear's dry cure (also used for the CB)
Some other cure recipe using Cure #1
I didn't take any shots of the CB while it was smoking as I did it last night and it was too dark. I smoked at 200 for about 4 hours to hit 145 IT. The CB turned out awesome! Way better than anything I've ever purchased at the store. Here's a shot of it after I sliced it up.
The bacon is currently cold smoking at about 70 with some occasional spikes up to 80 when the MES is trying to maintain temp. I'm using a mix of Bear Mountain Maple pellets and Todd's hickory. This seems to give me a nice smoke and maintains TBS well. I have had a lot of trouble cold smoking and getting too much white smoke. I did the MB mod and added an elbow to the exhaust on the gen 2. Seems to be maintaining a good draft and I can easily see through the smoker window. I may move to warm smoking Bear's and compare that to the only cold smoked pieces. If I do that, i'll pull the cold smoked at 4 hours, bring up temp on the Bear version for 4 hours then later return to cold smoking the other pieces for 4 hours. Total of 8 hrs smoke time for all pieces.
Here's my setup.
I'm colorblind...but this is looking like TBS to me?
Will update later!
I've had 3 different pieces of belly curing in different cure/brine recipes and also did some CB from a chunk of leg that was cut up. It was cheap and thought it would be good to use to try out some CB. Loin was 5.99 at my local QFC!
All were cured for 10 - 12 days. The CB dried in the fridge for 48 hrs, the bellies for 60 hrs. My first bacon try turned out acrid and I feared it was due to not letting a pellicle form well enough, along with too much white smoke.
Pops Brine
Bear's dry cure (also used for the CB)
Some other cure recipe using Cure #1
I didn't take any shots of the CB while it was smoking as I did it last night and it was too dark. I smoked at 200 for about 4 hours to hit 145 IT. The CB turned out awesome! Way better than anything I've ever purchased at the store. Here's a shot of it after I sliced it up.
The bacon is currently cold smoking at about 70 with some occasional spikes up to 80 when the MES is trying to maintain temp. I'm using a mix of Bear Mountain Maple pellets and Todd's hickory. This seems to give me a nice smoke and maintains TBS well. I have had a lot of trouble cold smoking and getting too much white smoke. I did the MB mod and added an elbow to the exhaust on the gen 2. Seems to be maintaining a good draft and I can easily see through the smoker window. I may move to warm smoking Bear's and compare that to the only cold smoked pieces. If I do that, i'll pull the cold smoked at 4 hours, bring up temp on the Bear version for 4 hours then later return to cold smoking the other pieces for 4 hours. Total of 8 hrs smoke time for all pieces.
Here's my setup.
I'm colorblind...but this is looking like TBS to me?
Will update later!
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