OK- Onward to BACON!
Last night I took the cured side and jowls out of the bags, rinsed them off real good, and soaked them in ice water for a half hour.
Then I cut a few slices of the thickest jowl and fried them up to test. I thought they were real good, but not quite salty enough. But then, I like salty, so they are probably just right for everyone else.
I dried off all the pieces and put them on racks over paper towels in the fridge overnight. They firmed up and look great!
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I took them out to the pre-heated smoker, my Apex Apparatus Mark 1. The smoker was up to about 90F to start, at 9am.
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I only have 5 hooks, so I hung the best pieces and put the other two on a rack. They are in front of the intake fan of the smoke circulating plenum. The fan does not blow directly on the meat.
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I put the hickory chips in the electric smoke box.
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Now I expect to leave them in there for 8 hours, after it reaches 125F.
I disconnected the two main heater elements of the smoker. It is heating only on the small element in the electric smoke chip-box.
I thought with the main elements and the desired low temp of only 125F, it would cycle so quickly that it would not generate much smoke.
How much smoke is good? Dense smoke all the time? Or smoke it heavy in the beginning for a couple hours, then just keep it at 125F until a total of 8 hours has passed?
This is gonna be some awesome hickory-smoked bacon.
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