Well, I finally got around to posting this. Took a while.
October weather turned out to be perfect for cold smoking, so I decided to pull a pork belly out of the freezer to thaw. It was time to make bacon.
Since I’ve always had great luck with it, I cured the bacon according to the great
Bearcarver
method. After adding the proper amount of Tender Quick, brown sugar, and garlic powder to each section of belly, I put each in a gallon ziplock (taking care to add in any of the cure mix that had fallen off) and sealed the bags, leaving enough air in to allow the juices to move about easily.
I massaged each bag daily and returned them to the fridge, after turning them over. I continued this process for 14 days. Then life happened, and nothing got done with the cured bellies for about a week and a half.
When life returned to normal, I took all four pieces of cured belly out of the fridge, rinsed, and did 2 one hour soaks in ice water. After rinsing and patting dry, I returned the pieces (uncovered) to the fridge for two days.
Finally, it was time to smoke. The meat was removed from the fridge, put on two racks, and left at room temperature while I preheated the MES and nuked and lit some Hickory pellets in the AMNPS.
It was a beautiful day, with the thermometer sitting at a steady 40F.
When the PID was sitting at a steady 65F and the pellets were smoking nicely, the meat went into the smoker.
Lots of nice TBS
I smoked the bacon for 9 hours, and returned it (uncovered) to the fridge.
Day 2 was a perfect copy of day 1, and I smoked the bacon for another 9 hours. So 18 hours total smoke time.
The bacon was returned to the fridge, where I let it sit uncovered for 2 days.
Just as a side note, my step-daughter and grandson came up for a visit a week later, and told me I had the best smelling fridge in the world. LOL
After letting it sit for 2 days, I dug out my meat slicer and sliced up the bacon about ¼” thick. Two of the pieces were nice and meaty, but the other 2 not so much. You can easily see the difference in the sliced bacon. I vac sealed all the bacon and then it was into the freezer.
The bad news was the high fat to meat ratio in half of the belly pieces. The good news is I ended up with lots of bacon in the freezer—even after giving away a bunch of it.
Sorry, but no plated pics—turned out my phone died before I could take any. So I’ll just have to tell you that, once fried, up it was delicious. I even enjoyed the more-fat-than-meat slices.
Thanks for looking.
Gary
October weather turned out to be perfect for cold smoking, so I decided to pull a pork belly out of the freezer to thaw. It was time to make bacon.
Since I’ve always had great luck with it, I cured the bacon according to the great
Bearcarver
method. After adding the proper amount of Tender Quick, brown sugar, and garlic powder to each section of belly, I put each in a gallon ziplock (taking care to add in any of the cure mix that had fallen off) and sealed the bags, leaving enough air in to allow the juices to move about easily.I massaged each bag daily and returned them to the fridge, after turning them over. I continued this process for 14 days. Then life happened, and nothing got done with the cured bellies for about a week and a half.
When life returned to normal, I took all four pieces of cured belly out of the fridge, rinsed, and did 2 one hour soaks in ice water. After rinsing and patting dry, I returned the pieces (uncovered) to the fridge for two days.
Finally, it was time to smoke. The meat was removed from the fridge, put on two racks, and left at room temperature while I preheated the MES and nuked and lit some Hickory pellets in the AMNPS.
It was a beautiful day, with the thermometer sitting at a steady 40F.
When the PID was sitting at a steady 65F and the pellets were smoking nicely, the meat went into the smoker.
Lots of nice TBS
I smoked the bacon for 9 hours, and returned it (uncovered) to the fridge.
Day 2 was a perfect copy of day 1, and I smoked the bacon for another 9 hours. So 18 hours total smoke time.
The bacon was returned to the fridge, where I let it sit uncovered for 2 days.
Just as a side note, my step-daughter and grandson came up for a visit a week later, and told me I had the best smelling fridge in the world. LOL
After letting it sit for 2 days, I dug out my meat slicer and sliced up the bacon about ¼” thick. Two of the pieces were nice and meaty, but the other 2 not so much. You can easily see the difference in the sliced bacon. I vac sealed all the bacon and then it was into the freezer.
The bad news was the high fat to meat ratio in half of the belly pieces. The good news is I ended up with lots of bacon in the freezer—even after giving away a bunch of it.
Sorry, but no plated pics—turned out my phone died before I could take any. So I’ll just have to tell you that, once fried, up it was delicious. I even enjoyed the more-fat-than-meat slices.
Thanks for looking.
Gary
