I have made BBB and Canadian Bacon in the past but never belly bacon so I finally scored some bellies and gave it a try. My buddy just bought a half a pig and I told him I would buy the bellies but he just gave them to me saying he wanted a few packages of the bacon in return. I liked the sound of free bacon so that was a definite score for me. I cured up 24lbs with TQ for 7 days and it turned out way to salty for me so I had to soak it for 5 hours in water to get it to a good level for me. I covered them in garlic & onion power and pepper and let them dry in the cooler over night. The next day I cold smoked them for 12 hours and this is the most smoky bacon I have ever had since I haven't cold smoked my past bacon for that long. It's really good but I'm hoping it will mellow out just a little bit more. I let it rest two days then I sliced and packaged everything up. Well enough on the details here is the proof.
The bellies cut in 6 somewhat even pieces.
TQ all measured out.
After all the curing is done and they are taking a bath to remove some of the salt flavor.
One of my many fry tests.
Going into the smoke shack.
Twelve hours later and you have this.
All of them hanging for a bit before they got wrapped in glad wrap for a few days rest in the cooler.
I forgot to get very many pictures of them as I was slicing them as I was the only one there and my hands were dirty. But here they are right before the slicing started.
So now I have a few questions. Is there a right and wrong way to slice bacon? Kind of like how you would go against or with the grain? I couldn't see any grain so I didn't know which way I was suppose to slice it. I just sliced it the way that gave me some meat and fat instead of all meat or all fat. I was kind of limited on what I could do because I have such a small slicer so I had to cut them into smaller pieces but I would try to slice them one way and it appeared I was getting all fat some times so I would rotate them and go the other way and sometimes that helped but I still ended up with a bunch of bacon that it pretty much all fat.
So my questions is what should I do with this stuff that is all fat? I packaged it up and labeled it fatty and was thinking I could use it for sausage or something like that. I put all the ends and misc. strange pieces in a big vacuum seal bag that I will save for making sausage as I know some people love using bacon ends for trim/fat in their sausage.
I realized that I need to get a bigger slicer for sure if I am going to continue to do bacon because I wasn't able to slice it the way I wanted to because my slicer slide isn't long enough. As soon as the wife got home I said I need a new bigger slicer. And much to my surprise all she said was "OK". Sounds like I will be ordering a new one soon. Thanks for looking at my post.
The bellies cut in 6 somewhat even pieces.
TQ all measured out.
After all the curing is done and they are taking a bath to remove some of the salt flavor.
One of my many fry tests.
Going into the smoke shack.
Twelve hours later and you have this.
All of them hanging for a bit before they got wrapped in glad wrap for a few days rest in the cooler.
I forgot to get very many pictures of them as I was slicing them as I was the only one there and my hands were dirty. But here they are right before the slicing started.
So now I have a few questions. Is there a right and wrong way to slice bacon? Kind of like how you would go against or with the grain? I couldn't see any grain so I didn't know which way I was suppose to slice it. I just sliced it the way that gave me some meat and fat instead of all meat or all fat. I was kind of limited on what I could do because I have such a small slicer so I had to cut them into smaller pieces but I would try to slice them one way and it appeared I was getting all fat some times so I would rotate them and go the other way and sometimes that helped but I still ended up with a bunch of bacon that it pretty much all fat.
So my questions is what should I do with this stuff that is all fat? I packaged it up and labeled it fatty and was thinking I could use it for sausage or something like that. I put all the ends and misc. strange pieces in a big vacuum seal bag that I will save for making sausage as I know some people love using bacon ends for trim/fat in their sausage.
I realized that I need to get a bigger slicer for sure if I am going to continue to do bacon because I wasn't able to slice it the way I wanted to because my slicer slide isn't long enough. As soon as the wife got home I said I need a new bigger slicer. And much to my surprise all she said was "OK". Sounds like I will be ordering a new one soon. Thanks for looking at my post.