Bacon Second Go Round

Since my first round of bacon went so well i got a second belly and started it 9 days ago and got it all ready tonight to stick it in the smoker tomorrow. I had a 10 lb belly cut into 3 slabs, but i cut one of the three in half and coated it in coarse ground pepper for pepper bacon. Here is a tease until i get the smoked pictures up in the next couple days.



 

See ya when i get them all done!

 

Here you go! Now you can continue drooling all over your keyboards!

In the smoker



Regular Bacon out of the smoker



Pepper bacon out of the smoker.



All the bacon sliced



Pepper bacon sliced



All vacuum sealed and ready for the freezer



We fried up a couple peices, all tasted good. I really like the pepper bacon, very tasty! I wish i would have made more than a tiny little slab of it. Oh well, next time i will make about half of it pepper bacon.

Thanks for looking!

 

I cured this bacon in the TQ cure without any sugar (1/2 oz per lb). Put it in bags and let it sit for 9 days, flipping and rubbing it daily. On day nine i pulled it from the bags, rinsed it off and soaked it in ice water for a 1/2 hour. Pulled it out, rinsed it again and pat dried it with paper towels. Cut and fried a test peice, it was perfect. The small slab of pepper bacon at this point i just generously sprinkled pepper on each side and rubbed it on and it stuck. Then i set in the fridge overnight uncovered to let it create the slight crust. On the 10th day i fired up the smoker to about 125-130* and used apple wood. Smoked it for about 5 hrs, meat temp was about 100*. Pulled it out at 5 hrs, wrapped it in plastic wrap and let it sit overnight in the fridge. Then sliced it up, and vacuum sealed it. Easy as that!

 

I do have to say thanks to BearCarver and his step by step instructions and some of his pointers. Without them i probably wouldnt have attempted this bacon thing at all!  

 

I guess that im lucky that i have 2 butchers locally that i can get fresh bellies from. My first batch of bacon was started from a belly that hadn't been off the pig for more than 12 hrs, now that is fresh. But they dont always have them. The other place vacuum seals them and freezes them as soon as they come off the pig.

I dont think that alot of people locally go in and buy bellies cause i get some weird reactions the first time i asked for them. oh well!