So with the wife really getting on board with bacon, which she never ate before I started making it at home, we are going through record amounts of the stuff. She actually went so far as to ask (insist? demand?) that I don't share any more with friends unless I start making double batches. Far be it from me to argue with the One Who Controls The Purse Strings so off I went to Costco and laid hands on the two biggest pork bellies I could find. Total weight was right at 22 pounds. That's gonna make a LOT of bacon....and hopefully make her happy :-) I cut both bellies into two pieces, weighed each, calculated the right amount of cure needed, and flavored each of them differently. It didn't cross my mind to take pics of the prep but the flavors are: maple & brown sugar, molasses and brown sugar, pepper crusted, and a new one, Cajun blackened. I've never seen or heard of anybody doing a Cajun blackened bacon so this is an absolute first for me but it seemed like it might work. All four slabs cured for 9 days then were taken out and rinsed well under cold water. After drying them off I added a second light application of each flavor to the slabs. Not being too sure about the Cajun flavor, I sliced off a small piece and did a fry test on it just to get an idea of what it'd be like. Didn't want to spend 8 hours smoking something that was gonna be a disaster :-) It was a bit salty even though I backed off the base salt amount in the cure due to knowing the seasoning had some salt in it. I used Chipotle pepper for the second round of seasoning versus more Cajun blackening season. There will be a brief review of this one at the end. They were all put back in the fridge overnight and smoked yesterday. When I got it all on the smoker it was an impressive sight so I started taking pics at that point. These will all be thumbnails so you can click on them to enlarge the pictures. Drum roll please.....
Smoker loaded up
Maple on the left, molasses on the right
Pepper on the left, Cajun on the right
8 hours later and off the smoker. This is the pepper crusted
Molasses and brown sugar
Maple and brown sugar
Cajun
All sliced up. That's a pile of bacon!!
Money shot. 16 bags of sliced and 3 bags of giblets I chopped up from the end pieces. These will get cooked and used in soups, salads, scalloped potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, or whatever else I may dream up along the way.
Ran the smoker at 135* for an hour or so then started the smoke with apple wood for about 7 hours at 150*, which worked out beautifully. There was no point in checking the IT because all of the slabs varied so much in thickness. I just let them go until the meat side was starting to color and the fat cap was starting to turn a golden brown. It was a marathon run this morning slicing all of this and getting it packaged but hopefully it'll keep my hobbies funded for a couple more weeks :-) Insofar as the Cajun bacon goes....although different than any other bacon I have ever had, it is truly amazing!! I cooked a few slices this morning, fried a couple eggs, added some toast, and had breakfast. It is bacon in no uncertain terms but with a flavor that is just beyond words. I can't tell you how good this stuff is, but I will tell you that it'll forever be a staple in our house. It's got a little bit of a tingle, an unbelievable complexity, and depth of flavor that I've never experienced with bacon before. Still a bit salty but that's fine....bacon is supposed to be salty and the salt is balanced out with the rest of the flavors. That's all for now, and thanks for looking.
Shakin' and bacon in Lago,
Robert
Smoker loaded up
Maple on the left, molasses on the right
Pepper on the left, Cajun on the right
8 hours later and off the smoker. This is the pepper crusted
Molasses and brown sugar
Maple and brown sugar
Cajun
All sliced up. That's a pile of bacon!!
Money shot. 16 bags of sliced and 3 bags of giblets I chopped up from the end pieces. These will get cooked and used in soups, salads, scalloped potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, or whatever else I may dream up along the way.
Ran the smoker at 135* for an hour or so then started the smoke with apple wood for about 7 hours at 150*, which worked out beautifully. There was no point in checking the IT because all of the slabs varied so much in thickness. I just let them go until the meat side was starting to color and the fat cap was starting to turn a golden brown. It was a marathon run this morning slicing all of this and getting it packaged but hopefully it'll keep my hobbies funded for a couple more weeks :-) Insofar as the Cajun bacon goes....although different than any other bacon I have ever had, it is truly amazing!! I cooked a few slices this morning, fried a couple eggs, added some toast, and had breakfast. It is bacon in no uncertain terms but with a flavor that is just beyond words. I can't tell you how good this stuff is, but I will tell you that it'll forever be a staple in our house. It's got a little bit of a tingle, an unbelievable complexity, and depth of flavor that I've never experienced with bacon before. Still a bit salty but that's fine....bacon is supposed to be salty and the salt is balanced out with the rest of the flavors. That's all for now, and thanks for looking.
Shakin' and bacon in Lago,
Robert
