First Attempt at Bacon

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cflbob

Fire Starter
Original poster
I've been wanting to try smoking my own bacon for quite a while, and have been keeping an eye out for a pork belly in all my usual shopping places.  No joy until last Friday at the corner grocery store (Publix). 

They had two packages, about 1 1/2 pounds each, of pork belly.  Already sliced.  I put that in bold because I think it's really important.

I looked up a brine recipe on here and have had them soaking since Monday.  I think tomorrow's the day.  I'm not sure how to tell if it's properly cured, but just by time it should be.  The recipe (for a solid pork belly) said to cut off a piece and fry it up; if you like it, it's done.  And I'm clueless about how to do this smoking. 

I have a MES, the 30" "Digital" smoker (no window) and a meat probe.  Since this is flavoring, I've seen other folks talk about smoking with a chamber temp of 185.  I don't want to cook the bacon, just get the smoke flavoring. 

Advise, please?
 
Sounds as if you want to cold smoke it....  then cook it when you are ready to eat.....

May I suggest you order an AMNPS from Todd and Pitmasters choice and Hickory pellets for starters...   Then smoke the bacon with no heat in the smoke for a few hours...  Let sit in the refer uncovered for a few days then try it...

CFL ???  compact florescent lights or Canadian Football league....   You in Canada eh...  he does have suppliers up there....

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I second the purchase of the amnps from Todd. I have one and it works great for doing cold smokes like bacon and cheese. You can search the forum for info on its use. I would also suggest the mailbox mod. Sure makes some good bacon.
Jason
 
The a-Mazen smoking device is the way to go for your bacon. I recently purchased the 5x8 maze, works great! Nice cold smoke. Filled the 1st row to the end and had 5 hours of low slow smoke. Was cold smoking pork ribs in my charcoal BBQ, remained at 175 degrees. Had a pound of store brand bacon, on occasional sale for $1.99 per lb. Cooked the bacon first, then put on the bbq last hour of cold smoking as an experiment. 1 hour of cold hickory smoke. The taste test was better than the pre-smoked $8.00lb bacon.  
 
You can still do your bacon sooner if you want.

If it is thickly sliced chunks of pork belly and they have been curing for  5 - 6 days, they may be ready. Normally I cure for 7 - 10 days but I use a dry cure, and it is always a slab (4-5 lb) of belly (skin removed)

What you do at this point in time is rinse off the bacon to get rid of that heavy salt residue. Then slice a piece and cook it. This is the fry test to see if it is too salty. If so - soak the pork for an hour and then test again. If you don't get the salt taste right at this point it will not get any better when you cook it.

If you smoke at 175 until you get an IT of 150 degrees you are done.

let it cool. then wrap and refriderate overnight. The next day slice what you want and fry it up.

This is basically how I do mine and it works great.

Good luck.
 
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