BBB...is it still good?

[Trev]

Ok,

Cured some BBB for two weeks and did a straight cold smoke at 40F for 6 hours. Put the bacon in the fridge for a couple three days to mellow and when wrapping it up this evening it looks sort of off to me. The inside is still nice and pink but the outsides are all a bit off color, say brownish. Is this due to oxygen in the fridge, has the meat turned south?
It doesnt really have an off smell, but its tought to tell through the smokiness.
I have done a ton of hot smoking of back bacon but this is my first go at straight cold smoking. I am good with tossing the batch if its off, but I am more looking for opinions on what may have happened as to improve going forward or if this is normal when cold smoking.

any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

 

[pc farmer]

How did you cure it? If cured properly then its safe. I see very little red alot of off color. I smoke my cured bellies for 60 or so hours sometimes. Could be the off color came from the fridge but we need to know how it was cured. Details.

 

[indaswamp]

I agree with pc farmer...how did you cure it...how much cure did you use? How did you mix up the brine? Or did you dry cure it? How long was it cured? Did you let it equalize?
If cured properly, and you allowed the cure to equalize, then what you are looking at is oxidation. As long as you do not go above say 130ish*, the nitrite will still be in high enough concentration to prevent the bad bugs. Plus- the smoke has adhered to the surface of the meat and with anti-microbial properties.

Just me, but I prefer dry curing for cold smoking after many many hours of research and asking around. Much easier to dry the surface to form a pellicle on a dry cured piece of meat. And you definitely do not want wet meat when cold smoking.....

 

[Trev]

Thanks for replying guys. I used the dry cure method. weighed and applied rub by piece. Into a food saver vac bag (all pieces batched into the bag at this point) with most but not all the air removed so I could massage and manipulate the extracted fluids etc. Cured in the fridge for 14 days with turning the bag and fluids every third day or so.
Cold smoke for 6 hours. then uncovered in fridge for 24 hours. After that I had to bag everything as my wife was not impressed by the strong smoke smell in her garage fridge. lol. Bagged for a other 2 days in the fridge.

This is how I cured and smoked this batch.


I have cured a ton of back bacon using leaner loin pieces using this exact method, but have always smoked it to about 130-140deg. It seems like adding the heat to the smoking process you get the nice golden reddish color.

I wanted to try something different with this buckboard bacon so was just checking in to see what the consensus is.

Thanks again for the replys guys and if you see a hole in my process please shoot away. I appreciate any feedback.