# Smoked Pancetta?



## sea_munky (Aug 28, 2008)

Hi folks.  So for my first pork belly venture, I thought I'd try my hand at making pancetta cuz it's pretty simple.  Never really had it before but it was easy enough - cure, roll, wrap, hang, yum - so i gave it a shot.

Well, after a week of curing, I trimmed it until square, rolled, and tied it up and now it's hanging.  I boiled up some pasta and cooked up the pancetta trimmings real crispy and learned something very important:  I don't really like pancetta.  
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






I know many people do but it's just not my thing.  It was crispy like bacon, porky like bacon, salty like bacon, but there was something missing - Ahhhhh, smoke!

So I think I'll try to smoke it.  Has anyone ever done this?  Do I take it to 150 like slab bacon?  My concern is that since it's rolled, the outside might get really dry before I reach the internal temp.  Plus, the skin was removed before curing.

Yes, I can unroll it but I thought it would be cool to have round slices of smoked bacon to put on burgers, english muffins, and such.

Any tips?  Smoke then wrap in foil?  Thanks.


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## ronp (Aug 28, 2008)

I want to make some, any ideas from you would be great.


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## sea_munky (Aug 28, 2008)

ron - regular pancetta or smoked?  I'm gonna try to smoke mine this saturday so I'll let you know how it goes.  We'll see if anyone chimes in with tips and pointers.

As far as the curing, I used this site as a guideline

www.chow.com/stories/10131

They include a recipe, video tutorial, and other tips.  One tip that might be helpful is that following the recipe results in a very salty product.


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## bbqgoddess (Aug 28, 2008)

ohhhhh my favorite... Sea_munky, I curtsey to you,  this is the one thing I would really like to make, I am to chicken to try curing...


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## ronp (Aug 28, 2008)

That is a long process. Thanks for the link.


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