Bacon my butt!

[pitrow]

Well I had two pork butts burning a hole in my fridge... one is destined for pulled pork for sunday, but the other I thought I'd try my hand at buck board bacon for the first time.

Started it off last night, de-boned, trimmed, etc. Then mixed up a cure with tender-quick and rubbed it down real well.

I took pics along the way with the intention of posting them this morning, but the girlfriend took the camera to work this morning for some kind of party they are having. So they'll have to wait until tonight.

Anyway, the BBB is now curing in the fridge for the next 10 days, and the other butt is waiting to get rubbed and smoked on saturday for sunday's party.

Pics will come as soon as possible and as everything progresses.

 

[mballi3011]

Yes sir you do need the Qview and it will be fine we wait all the time specially for the buck board bacon. Believe me it's worth the waiting.

 

[pitrow]

Well, here's the starting pics.


Here's the butt I picked for the bacon, ready to be trimmed and deboned.


Cut in half and deboned. Not to bad for my first time I think. Plus I trimmed off some of the extra fat to be saved for sausage.


Weighed it out and measured up a mix of tender quick, garlic, brown sugar and cracked black peppers (plus a few whole peppers that fell in and I didn't feel like picking out). Rubbed up both halves then stacked them and tied them tight with twine


Stuffed into a double wrap of ziplocks and into the fridge.


I'll add more pics of the bacon as it progresses, plus some of the pulled pork as I start that.

Thanks for lookin.

 

[the dude abides]

Looks good Mike. We'll be waiting for the finale.

 

[onedragon221]

WOW!!!! Looking good!!!!

 

[pignit]

Just a thought... but you may have to untie them to rinse before smokin. I would. Actually, since you have already halved the butt... I'd smoke them seperated. It will give you much more surface area for smoke and seasoning. Curious question... why did you stack them after cure and tie them up?

 

[pitrow]

Yep, the plan is to smoke them separated. The only reason I stacked them is to save space in the fridge, and so I could get them into a single ziplock, which is also why I tied them. Since they just barely fit in a gallon size ziplock they were much to floppy to manhandle into it easily when they were separate, so I tied them up nice and tight and they made it in no problem.

BTW, they were rubbed with cure separately so there's plenty of cure in between the two also, not just on the outside.

 

[pignit]

Great plan. I love this stuff.

 

[pitrow]

And here's the start of the pulled pork half of it.

Decided to try something a little different this time. I usually don't inject my butts, but I thought I'd give it a shot this time, just so both halves of this smoke are something new for me.

Here's the butt after rinsing it off


And here's the injection mixture. A little Dr. Pepper Cherry flavor, a couple spoonfuls of Cowgirl's smoked honey, some cayenne for kick, a little Johnny's seasoning salt for oomph, and just for grins some Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine.


And the butt after injection. Can't really tell the difference huh?


Now for the rub. Again something different for me. Course ground dijon mustard and Ryan Traeger's Pork & Poultry shake.


Finally here she is, all rubbed and ready for her wrap and rest in the fridge tonight.

 

[pitrow]

First off, sorry it's taken so long to get the final pics uploaded. It's been one of those months...

Anyway here we go.

Here's the PP butt ready to hit the smoker


Sorry, I didn't get any pics after the smoker, but barely remembered to snap one after it was all pulled and into the crock pot.



It turned out great. I really liked the flavor the injection gave it, going to have to do that one again. The rub was kind of a wash though. With the course grains of the mustard it didn't really want to stick very well and most of the rub ended up coming off. Won't go that route again.

And here's the bacon butt after rinsing and letting sit in the fridge overnight.


And into the smoker she goes.


My infamous non-smoking cold smoker. I had bought this cheapie $13 soldering iron to make a cold smoker since I didn't want to use my $150 soldering station for it. I had plans for making a nice cold smoker using it and some stainless but never got around to it. So I grabbed a tin can, poked some air holes in it and stuck the iron in through the side. Added some small wood chips and off we went...


half an hour later... hmmm... still not smoking, I wonder it the iron isn't touching the wood enough. Adjust iron and wood. 20 minutes later, again no smoke. Pull the iron out and jam it straight in the wood chips from the top. Definitely touching the wood now, this should work. Nope. An hour an a half later (the neighbor came over to chat and wouldn't leave) and still not a wisp of smoke. I pull the iron out, WTF?, it's ice cold. Apparently my $13 soldering iron is defective. I guess you get what you pay for. So I fire up the MES and set it to it's lowest setting (100) and dump the wood chips in the pan. I prop open the door about an inch and let it go. Looks like the temps in the smoker never got above about 115 so shouldn't be too bad for a cold smoke, but the down side is I only got about two hours of smoke on the bacon before I had to shut it down and go to bed.

And here's the butts out of the smoker and before slicing



I had done a little fry test on the bacon after rinsing and it was a little heavy on the garlic side, but tasted wonderful! Salt level was right on so no need to soak. Probably the best tasting bacon I've ever had.

Unfortunately I didnt' get any sliced pics, but maybe I can when I get back home next week.

Thanks for looking!