Buckboard Bacon - 1st Attempt

[DrewJ]

Hey All,

Our local Hy-Vee had pork butt on sale for 97 cents a pound so I bought the two biggest I could find. I have been wanting to try buckboard bacon for a while so this was my perfect excuse. I butchered (in more way than one) the butts and cubed up some for instant pot carnitas (which were great) and created a few wonky slabs to try my hand at buckboard bacon. I dry cured by weight following the guide posted by disco here. Cured for 9 days and smoked them yesterday for about 6 hours on apple until they hit internal of 145 degrees F. Fried up a little for a taste test and it was amazing. Gonna slice and portion the rest in the next couple of days. Here a few pics:


Out of the cure and soaked for an hour in cold water to cut the salt a bit. I also ran them in my convection oven on the dehydrate setting to add a little pellicule. Also on a tip from disco .

After smoking. The two hunks on the back left are the bones of the butt that I also cured with some meat left on them for making soups. That's an experiment but I'm thinking it will be good.

Test fry:

Thanks to everyone on this site since I would never have dreamed of trying anything like this without some advice and inspiration from the fine people here!

-drew-

 

[SmokinVOLfan]

Looks great! Its on my list of stuff to try out here soon too!

 

[Brokenhandle]

Looks good! You'll be hooked now! Plus you can't beat the price.

Ryan

 

[tx smoker]

Nice job. I too have done the BBB but I believe I followed the directions of Bearcarver and like yours, it was fantastic. To this day though I do all of my belly bacon and Back (Canadian) Bacon ala disco Hiss technique is rock solid.

Robert

 

[BrianGSDTexoma]

Hey All,

Our local Hy-Vee had pork butt on sale for 97 cents a pound so I bought the two biggest I could find. I have been wanting to try buckboard bacon for a while so this was my perfect excuse. I butchered (in more way than one) the butts and cubed up some for instant pot carnitas (which were great) and created a few wonky slabs to try my hand at buckboard bacon. I dry cured by weight following the guide posted by disco here. Cured for 9 days and smoked them yesterday for about 6 hours on apple until they hit internal of 145 degrees F. Fried up a little for a taste test and it was amazing. Gonna slice and portion the rest in the next couple of days. Here a few pics:


Out of the cure and soaked for an hour in cold water to cut the salt a bit. I also ran them in my convection oven on the dehydrate setting to add a little pellicule. Also on a tip from disco .
View attachment 481093

After smoking. The two hunks on the back left are the bones of the butt that I also cured with some meat left on them for making soups. That's an experiment but I'm thinking it will be good.
View attachment 481094

Test fry:
View attachment 481095

Thanks to everyone on this site since I would never have dreamed of trying anything like this without some advice and inspiration from the fine people here!

-drew-

Wow that looks really good!I love those things. I tried doing a half leg last time and like the butt lot better.

 

[smokerjim]

looks fantastic, great job!

 

[TNJAKE]

Looks awesome. Something I plan on doing real soon

 

[jmusser]

Looks tasty! Beautiful color. BBB is the gentle mix btw belly and canadian in my opinion. Well done.

 

[jcam222]

Looks great Drew! We love buckboard. I use the Pops wet brine and it turns out some great BB too.

 

[ChuxPick]

Drew your BB sure looks tasty