Bacon explosion question

[huntsmoke41]

Hello all, going to do my first bacon explosion in my smoker this weekend, was curious if I should use my water pan or not? Any insight to this would be great.
Thanks !

 

[themule69]

Lets start with what kind of smoker? I would cold smoke it with the water pan empty but in place if that is an option. What temp are you planning on smoking?

Happy smoken.

David

 

[huntsmoke41]

It's a bbq guru onyx oven, was gonna smoke at 225, till IT of 165. I thought about possibly having my buddy who does granite work cut me a stone board to use.

 

[mdboatbum]

A bacon explosion, if I remember correctly, is a fatty. My experience has been that other than more time in the smoke, low, slow and moist doesn't do much for fatties. I usually crank the heat to 275-300 (or wherever I'm cooking my primary meat, as I usually will toss a fatty in with something else) and let it go until the bacon is crisp. 9 times out of 10, it will be 165-170 in the middle at that point. Usually around 2 hours. And I don't use a water pan.
By the way, just a cautionary tale. The first time I made a fatty I kind of glossed over the recipe. I made my bacon weave, spread the sausage out on top of that then rolled it all up and tossed it in the smoker. The result was that the bacon that was rolled up in the interior was soggy and kinda disgusting. It's a small detail, but make sure you roll your sausage into a log THEN wrap in the bacon weave. That way all the bacon's on the outside where it'll get crispy.