all cured and cool smoked for 8 hrs using 2 loads of hickory and maple in 2 diferent AMNS. i brought the internal temps up to 125ish and that seems to be where i like to bring my BBB, just before the fat starts to melt.
here is the maple.....
and the brown sugar cured........
and the southwest chipotle...........
all in all, i am quite pleased with the 3 products....here is what i think of them:
my least favorite is the maple....i'm just not a fan of sweet meats but this was not too sweet at all. don't get me wrong, i ate 4 slices this morning and thought it was pretty damn good. i am one of those who needs a separate plate for my sausage with my pancakes. some of you might want to double the amount of syrup listed on the bag.
the brown sugar cure was as close too bacon as bacon gets.......if you look at that particular but it has so much fat there are some slices in there that look exactly like belly! this bacon was not very sweet at all and i really liked smoke flavor that got through and i would not change the ratios at all. i will be making this one again for a more traditional profile.
the sw-chipotle was by far my favorite one. this is just plain snackin' stuff or on a blt or to ue the slightly spiced oil for morning potatoes. the spices were slight so you knew were still eating "bacon" and not some other smoked pork product treat. there was a nice blend of spices with not one single one standingout but a balanced blend defining a certain flavor profile with a little lingering heat on the finish. i personally would up the heat to move the sensation to the middle and through to the end.
all in all all 3 were a success and 2 i will do again. to those of you who have thought about moving to cure #1 for your bacon processing.....i highly recomend it. it was easy to measure, you can control your salt/sugar (i did not soak, just rinsed), play with flavor profiles and it is cheap!
thx for stoppin' by............
