While I was in Florida I helped BamaFan slice his BBB and taste tested it. I loved it so he gave me some cure to take home. Finally got around to doing my first batch.
Process:
-I started with a 10.5lb butt, deboned, and cut in half. I decided to leave the fat cap on since it seems to be way leaner than belly bacon.
- I put the cure on both pieces.
- 1 of them I decided to do just plain and the other I decided to make peppered.
- They set in the cure for 2 weeks, I turned them daily.
- After curing I pulled them out and rinsed them off.
- Smoked in the MES for 10hrs using hickory pellets in the AMNPS.
Chamber temps:
1 hr at 100 deg
1 hr at 110 deg
Etc all the way up to 190 then held there till the meat hit 140 IT
- I hung my meat from a homemade rack that was inspired by someone on here. Didn't have enough hooks so I had to improvise, so I used chop sticks that I had. Hey it worked!
- I had every intention to rest for 24hrs then slice but one of the dogs got real sick so I froze and sliced a week later.
- Wife loves it, I love it, so I would say it was a success, good thing since I ended up with 8lbs of Bacon. The only thing I would change, I would add more black pepper after rinsing. It looked like a good bit was still on there but I didn't taste much pepper this morning for breakfast.
Here they are in the cure:
Hanging in the smoker:
Peppered cut in half getting ready to freeze:
Sliced pic of the plain hickory smoked:
Sliced pic of the peppered:
All 8lbs vacuum sealed. You can see a 1lb bag of "soup meat" in the bottom, it's the ends and little scraps from slicing:
Breakfast, final product:
If you haven't tried this, you should! I paid $1.04/lb for this butt and the cure was free so for $11 I got 8lbs of bacon, I don't think that can be beat!
Thanks for looking
Kyle
Process:
-I started with a 10.5lb butt, deboned, and cut in half. I decided to leave the fat cap on since it seems to be way leaner than belly bacon.
- I put the cure on both pieces.
- 1 of them I decided to do just plain and the other I decided to make peppered.
- They set in the cure for 2 weeks, I turned them daily.
- After curing I pulled them out and rinsed them off.
- Smoked in the MES for 10hrs using hickory pellets in the AMNPS.
Chamber temps:
1 hr at 100 deg
1 hr at 110 deg
Etc all the way up to 190 then held there till the meat hit 140 IT
- I hung my meat from a homemade rack that was inspired by someone on here. Didn't have enough hooks so I had to improvise, so I used chop sticks that I had. Hey it worked!
- I had every intention to rest for 24hrs then slice but one of the dogs got real sick so I froze and sliced a week later.
- Wife loves it, I love it, so I would say it was a success, good thing since I ended up with 8lbs of Bacon. The only thing I would change, I would add more black pepper after rinsing. It looked like a good bit was still on there but I didn't taste much pepper this morning for breakfast.
Here they are in the cure:
Hanging in the smoker:
Peppered cut in half getting ready to freeze:
Sliced pic of the plain hickory smoked:
Sliced pic of the peppered:
All 8lbs vacuum sealed. You can see a 1lb bag of "soup meat" in the bottom, it's the ends and little scraps from slicing:
Breakfast, final product:
If you haven't tried this, you should! I paid $1.04/lb for this butt and the cure was free so for $11 I got 8lbs of bacon, I don't think that can be beat!
Thanks for looking
Kyle