Bacon Thickness

sportgd · May 10, 2017

I did a little searching and I couldn't really find specific answers... I'm curious what thickness everyone prefers to slice their bacon?
I'm assuming thicker is easier to slice?

I'll be slicing mine tomorrow on a friends small slicer and plan to put in freezer first to firm it up.

Thanks for any help!

shyzabrau · May 10, 2017

This is a useless answer, but... it depends.

How do you want to eat/serve it? That makes all the difference.

sportgd · May 10, 2017

Shyzabrau said:
This is a useless answer, but... it depends.

How do you want to eat/serve it? That makes all the difference.

Great point... I use bacon in many different ways(on sandwiches, crumbled as topping, wrapped around something, mixed into something). So I was just more thinking for a multipurpose size that I could slice up all in one shot, or maybe 2 sizes that I could go half and half or something.

tallbm · May 10, 2017

sportgd said:
I did a little searching and I couldn't really find specific answers... I'm curious what thickness everyone prefers to slice their bacon?
I'm assuming thicker is easier to slice?

I'll be slicing mine tomorrow on a friends small slicer and plan to put in freezer first to firm it up.

Thanks for any help!

I've only done 16 pounds of bacon one time and I used a Cabela's 6.5" slicer.

The setting I used was #4. I think this made about 1/16th of an inch thick. It may be more like 3/32nds but defintely not 1/8th.

The freezer should help out.

I personally just went from the bacon sitting in the fridge about 15-16 hours to the slicer. I hope this helps some :)

shyzabrau · May 10, 2017

For general purposes, I would slice it somewhat thick. I generally don't fry up slices for breakfast. I would make bacon as a tailgaiting snack or wrapping some chicken for a poolside snack. (See a theme?)

I haven't made bacon yet, but I expect to make thin and thick slices and vacuum seal them separately. I hope to start my first cure on Saturday...

shyzabrau · May 10, 2017

I might vacuum-seal it unsliced in 8 ounce portions and slice it to the thickness that I need on demand.

Does that sound reasonable?

tallbm · May 10, 2017

Another thing to consider... I smoked mine to an IT of 145F so I could try it fresh off the smoker and I could eat it cold and know it was fully cooked.

Honestly I've eaten more of my bacon cold right out of the package like that than fried hahahaha. I honestly feel like my bacon is damn near a cold cut sandwich meat and wouldn't hesitate to make sandwich out of it like that hahahaha.

SmokinAl · May 11, 2017

I like my bacon sliced pretty thin.

About #1 setting on the slicer.

Al

sportgd · May 11, 2017

Really helpful! Thanks everyone, I think I'll do half thin and half thicker...

I cold smoked it so I won't be eating it out of the package like that!

Bearcarver · May 11, 2017

sportgd said:
Really helpful! Thanks everyone, I think I'll do half thin and half thicker...

I cold smoked it so I won't be eating it out of the package like that!

I'm a little late here, but I would say it depends on what you do most of.

Most of my Bacon goes to BLTs, so I like it almost as thin as the store bought stuff.

As for taking it to 145°, I do that with my CB & my BBB, but not my Belly Bacon.

Bear

dirtsailor2003 · May 11, 2017

I don't slice mine before freezing. Typically when I buy a full belly, I will cut it into thirds prior to curing. Depending on the size that will give my (3) 3-4 pound hunks to cure. Once cured and smoked I take each third and cut (sometimes I will do this before smoking) it into thirds. This gives me a 1+/- pound rasher of bacon. I vac pack and freeze that. Then I can slice or chunk it however I want depending on what I am cooking. If I'm making BT's I can slice it thin. If I want chunks I can cube it. If I want thick cut I slice it thick.

I don't know why others don't do this. makes it the most versatile. Learned this from a butcher we used to buy bacon from. His was always cut and sold like this.

sportgd · May 11, 2017

Bearcarver said:
I'm a little late here, but I would say it depends on what you do most of.

Most of my Bacon goes to BLTs, so I like it almost as thin as the store bought stuff.

As for taking it to 145°, I do that with my CB & my BBB, but not my Belly Bacon.

Bear

Yeah I am going to do a bunch thin for this reasoning... thanks!

dirtsailor2003 said:
I don't slice mine before freezing. Typically when I buy a full belly, I will cut it into thirds prior to curing. Depending on the size that will give my (3) 3-4 pound hunks to cure. Once cured and smoked I take each third and cut (sometimes I will do this before smoking) it into thirds. This gives me a 1+/- pound rasher of bacon. I vac pack and freeze that. Then I can slice or chunk it however I want depending on what I am cooking. If I'm making BT's I can slice it thin. If I want chunks I can cube it. If I want thick cut I slice it thick.

I don't know why others don't do this. makes it the most versatile. Learned this from a butcher we used to buy bacon from. His was always cut and sold like this.

Makes a lot of sense, my only issue is having to borrow a friends slicer... I think I'll freeze a chunk just in case though because this is good advice!

rexster314 · May 11, 2017

When I'm doing it for us, I'll take the whole belly, trim off the uneven ends, slice half thin (think store bought) and slice the other have fairly thick. Usually about 4 pounds each. We use the thin sliced for baked beans, sandwiches. The thick cut I'll use for sandwiches mostly. The trimmed ends will eventually get put off into a pot of beans, chowder, and cooked for bacon bits.

tallbm · May 11, 2017

Just out of curiosity, did you do a fry test by any chance?

I've only smoked 16 pounds of bacon 1 time and thank goodness I did a salt test. Had to soak my bellies for 6 hours in ice water to get the salt content acceptable. Without the test I would have had a pork salt block :P

sportgd · May 11, 2017

TallBM said:
Just out of curiosity, did you do a fry test by any chance?

I've only smoked 16 pounds of bacon 1 time and thank goodness I did a salt test. Had to soak my bellies for 6 hours in ice water to get the salt content acceptable. Without the test I would have had a pork salt block :P

I didn't but I was lower on the salt content from Pops' brine recipe so I felt pretty comfortable... I had some today and it was good for salt... potentially a little oversmoked though!

rexster314 said:
When I'm doing it for us, I'll take the whole belly, trim off the uneven ends, slice half thin (think store bought) and slice the other have fairly thick. Usually about 4 pounds each. We use the thin sliced for baked beans, sandwiches. The thick cut I'll use for sandwiches mostly. The trimmed ends will eventually get put off into a pot of beans, chowder, and cooked for bacon bits.

Yeah I took the ends and made them into nubs, the Mrs. and I had an amazing appetizer called maple bacon nubs that I'll be working to recreate!

Thanks all for your guidance and suggestions!

sliced bacon.jpg

sportgd
May 11, 2017

Bearcarver · May 11, 2017

TallBM said:
Just out of curiosity, did you do a fry test by any chance?

I've only smoked 16 pounds of bacon 1 time and thank goodness I did a salt test. Had to soak my bellies for 6 hours in ice water to get the salt content acceptable. Without the test I would have had a pork salt block :P

Exactly!!

I have never had any salty Bacon when using my method, but I recommend doing the Salt-Fry-Test, and I do it myself every time, because if you find it in time you can fix it like you did.

I consider it much like looking both ways before crossing the street---You don't have to But.......................

Bear

tallbm · May 11, 2017

sportgd said:
I didn't but I was lower on the salt content from Pops' brine recipe so I felt pretty comfortable... I had some today and it was good for salt... potentially a little oversmoked though!

Yeah I took the ends and made them into nubs, the Mrs. and I had an amazing appetizer called maple bacon nubs that I'll be working to recreate!

Thanks all for your guidance and suggestions!

Congrats on success!!!

I didn't do a cold smoke but I really latched on to something DaveOmak said and that is that he likes about 5 hours or so of smoke and then finds it to be too smokey going much past that point (correct me if I misstated anything).

I followed that notion and did a 5 hour smoke on some Ground Formed Venison bacon using 100% Hickory and I found his 5 hour mark to be perfect with 100% Hickory on that bacon'ish dish!

I did 70% Apple and 30% Hickory for 8 pounds of belly bacon, and then 50/50 Cherry and Pecan on another belly. I think I went to 5-6 hours of smoke on them and it was also great! I could probably go a little longer on those blends but I am very happy with the smoke flavor and strength.

I did a lot of reading when I attempted my bacon and found that many people experience no difference in smoke flavor on their bacon and that all smoke tasted the same.

This seemed odd to me and I think I discovered that they weren't lying but there was a catch to the statement!

What I found was that bacon softly/lightly fried or not fried at all (cooked to safe 145F during the smoke) had great distinguishable wood flavor.

When the same bacon was fried to be crispy I could not really tell the difference in the wood flavoring.

I think that solved the mystery. I like soft bacon and it happened to have distinguishable wood flavoring between my two different wood smoked bacon batches, where most people like crispy bacon which seems to change the flavor profile though it is still amazing as well!

I hope this info helps :)

sportgd · May 11, 2017

TallBM said:
Congrats on success!!!

I didn't do a cold smoke but I really latched on to something DaveOmak said and that is that he likes about 5 hours or so of smoke and then finds it to be too smokey going much past that point (correct me if I misstated anything).

I followed that notion and did a 5 hour smoke on some Ground Formed Venison bacon using 100% Hickory and I found his 5 hour mark to be perfect with 100% Hickory on that bacon'ish dish!

I did 70% Apple and 30% Hickory for 8 pounds of belly bacon, and then 50/50 Cherry and Pecan on another belly. I think I went to 5-6 hours of smoke on them and it was also great! I could probably go a little longer on those blends but I am very happy with the smoke flavor and strength.

I did a lot of reading when I attempted my bacon and found that many people experience no difference in smoke flavor on their bacon and that all smoke tasted the same.

This seemed odd to me and I think I discovered that they weren't lying but there was a catch to the statement!

What I found was that bacon softly/lightly fried or not fried at all (cooked to safe 145F during the smoke) had great distinguishable wood flavor.

When the same bacon was fried to be crispy I could not really tell the difference in the wood flavoring.

I think that solved the mystery. I like soft bacon and it happened to have distinguishable wood flavoring between my two different wood smoked bacon batches, where most people like crispy bacon which seems to change the flavor profile though it is still amazing as well!

I hope this info helps :)

Thanks Tall!

You know I saw so many varying times on smoking the bacon even up to 34 hours! I know so much of it is personal preference but it didn't have the color I was going for at 10 hours so I kept it going probably ended up about 20(I was asleep when the maze went out). It was still tasty just definitely smokey... I'll certainly cut back the next time!

I like my bacon on the pretty crispy side so I may end up cooking some of that smoke right out based on that.

I'll certainly post some Q-views in the many meals I'll be including the bacon in!

HalfSmoked · May 12, 2017

Looks like you have gotten a lot of sound advice here you'll just have to sort out what works best for you. We mostly do dry cure taking a lot longer to mature.

Warren

Bacon Thickness

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