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
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
