Yep.. That's how I do it.... I find the "exposure" to the dehydrating effect of the refer, dry ages the belly like you would if you were "dry aging" a prime rib for intense, delicious flavor.... The final product comes out like bacon in the '50's... slab bacon... intense bacon flavor...
After the curing process, I wait 2 weeks, rinse, dry, pellicle formation and cold smoke below 70 F for however long... some folks cold smoke for up to .......
Below is Brican's method... 8 hours or so of cold smoke per day... 16 hours no smoke...
After 7 days give the belly a quick rinse under tepid water to remove the residue of salt and cure
Hang to dry in room temperature for about 8 hours so that the meat side is dryish to the touch (not completely dry) and recover the meat side with another 100g of the Maple Sugar for another 7 days
I forgot to let you know at the beginning that this is not a fast way to make bacon but it is a quality way of making it
After a further 7 days take and hang at room temperature either to dry/age/mature if you do not wish to cold smoke or for 12 to 24 hours for it to dry enough so that you can cold smoke it
Cold smoke adheres to meat when it is tacky and warm (room temperature) not when it is cold and wet hence the hanging at room temperature and not leaving in the fridge
The length of time smoking is up to each one -- remember that when cold smoking we are building a flavour profile and for you folks that wish to hot smoke your internal temperature is no more than 145F (63C) as you should be cooking your bacon once and not twice. The other sad part about hot smoking you get what you get when you finish the smoking there is no added flavour profile that is built up in layers as what happens when cold smoking
I always age/mature my bacon be it cold smoked or no,t for 7 days at room temperature (45F to 55F -- 7C to 14C)
Hope this is of help to people -- As I said; this is one of many ways of doing Maple Bacon
