# My first time makin' bacon



## dpeart (Oct 11, 2011)

I finally got around to making some bacon.

Equipment:

UDS - with electric element

BBQ Guru

AMNPS

Food stuffs:

11 pounds fresh pork belly

Morton TQ

Course ground pepper

Sugar

Smoking log:

9:00AM     - turn on smoker to 150 to dry out
11:00AM - 11oz hickory pellets
    - reduced temperature to 100
    - added cured belly to smoker
9:30PM    - smoke stopped
10:00PM    - Pulled bacon and put in fridge
 

Here is my fresh pork bellies I got from the local meat shop:








Seasoning and cure mixture:







Bacon? . . . pleease . . .







Aahh! . . . no bacon :(







Let it cure for 9 days, smoked for 10.5 hours with my AMNPS and hickory to create this.







The strips are the rind, that I smoked along with the bacon.  I now have it back in the smoker at 165 for several hours to cook, and dry out as doggie treats.

Sliced some, cooked it, but it got eaten by the hoards before I got a picture.  It looked like sliced bacon.

Observations:

The AMNPS is truly amazing.  I can't imagine trying to smoke for 10.5 hours of constant perfect light blue smoke any other way.  Funny thing is that I was talking to my Mom after ordering it and she ordered one too for jerky making.  Well worth every penny I spent.  Now I just need to order all the remaining flavors of pellets, hopefully Todd has apple pellets . . .

The smoker had a lot of moisture in it during the smoke.  It was only in the 80-90s yesterday and I had the smoker at 100 so I didn't expect a lot of moisture.  Is this normal?

The hickory smell is strong and very flavorful, a little sharp.  I suspect that it will mellow with time.  I sliced up one chunk for eating now, vacuum sealed the rest and froze them.  I eat about 1.5 pounds of bacon a week so this won't last long.  As it was a great success I'll order a case of pork bellies from my meat supplier and make a larger batch next time.  Though I'll have to hang the bellies as I filled up both racks in my UDS with this batch.

Anyone ever use rib racks to hold the bacon?  I could get more on the smoker that way as well.

Lot's of fun!

dave


----------



## roller (Oct 11, 2011)

Goodlooking bacon I hope that you enjoy it...


----------



## tjohnson (Oct 11, 2011)

WOW!

FANTASTIC!

The color looks absolutely wonderful.  I think you nailed it!

Great idea for the doggie treats.  Your Great Dane will love his share of the bacon smoke

Not sure why there's so much moisture.  I've done many batches of bacon, and don't remember excess moisture in the smoker.

Did you have the exhaust open?

I use Apple Pellets to smoke my bacon.  Hickory can have a little "Bite", and my kids don't like it.  Once I switched to Apple, they eat bacon up like it's candy.  The sharpness you are tasting may just be from the outer pieces.  I cut those off, and keep them separate from the rest of the slices.  These "Ends & Pieces" make great Pork and Beans!!  I have a neighbor who loves the extra smokey flavor of the ends and pieces.  He fries up a couple little pieces with his eggs in the morning.  My wife makes a salad that calls for bacon and we always fry some extra smokey ends and pieces up for her salad.

I would really be interested in a tour of your UDS, and how the BBQ Guru works???

Also, pics of the UDS with the AMNPS would be great too.

And Yes, I literally have 2 Tons of Apple Pellets!!

Todd


----------



## chefrob (Oct 11, 2011)

great lookin'bacon .............and one lucky pooch too!


----------



## mballi3011 (Oct 11, 2011)

Now thats some good looking bacon. Did you slice any????


----------



## slownlow (Oct 11, 2011)

Nice bacon.  You nailed it on your first shot. 

The AMNPS is awesome isn't it.   Check out some of the other pellets Todd has, I picked up wine and bourbon barrel pellets from him.  I can't wait till they get here to try them out.


----------



## michael ark (Oct 11, 2011)

X2 on a tour of your pit. I bet that would be great in some soup beans.This is my 1,001 post in less than a year.


----------



## dpeart (Oct 11, 2011)

Here is my UDS with the AMNPS and my BBQ Guru running my electric element from my ECB.  I just took the bottom portion of the ECB and put it in the bottom of my UDS and ran the cord out the air intake.







A shot inside with the foil tent over the AMNPS







now the the tent gone.  You can see the bottom of the ECB also:







I really like the BBQ Guru, it works really well for my electric.  I've not run it on the UDS with charcoal yet, but will do that sometime in the future.  I did get a 12V fan and get it all ready to go, just haven't needed it as the UDS is pretty set it and forget it.

I'll have to do a build post.  I have the picts, just haven't done it yet.

So what's up with this black tar stuff on the inside of the foil tent?  Liquid smoke :)







dave


----------



## bluebombersfan (Oct 11, 2011)

That looks amazing!! Great job!!!  My dog is a little jealous about the dog treats!!!!  I promised her NEXT TIME.


----------



## SmokinAl (Oct 11, 2011)

WOW, nice looking bacon!

The color is awesome!


----------



## Bearcarver (Oct 11, 2011)

Very nice job, Dave!!!!

Nice color too!!

Thanks,

Bear


----------



## africanmeat (Oct 11, 2011)

Wow this is a great looking bacon. what a nice color


----------



## teeznuts (Oct 11, 2011)

Nice job! Now you're gonna be hooked on bacon makin.


----------



## tjohnson (Oct 11, 2011)

Lick it and let us know what flavor it is

LOL!!!

I used to place a foil tent over my AMNPS, but had issues with the heat deflecting down and catching the rest of the pellets on fire.  This probably won;t happen at lower temps, but at 225° you may have problems.  All you have to do is hold the tent up off the pellets a few inches, so the heat can escape.

Todd


----------



## venture (Oct 11, 2011)

Excellent looking bacon!  You will now be hooked for sure.

Good luck and good smoking.


----------

