Can you bake bacon (indoors) to 150 and then cold smoke?

[cory neeley]

I recently started curing around 20 lbs of bacon. I have a smoker that can take around 5 or so lbs at a time and I had planned on doing 4 batches in a row this weekend (2 each day). Mother nature is giving me the cold shoulder right now and the weather in WI is really crappy and I doubt that my smoker will be able to get up to temp for hot smoking in -15 weather. Add in all of the blowing snow and I don't really want to put my smoker out there for very long as it is electric. I am looking for a way to do a lot more bacon (maybe 2 batches rather than 4). I can stack more bacon in there if I am not hot smoking, probably doubling my batch to 10 lbs at a time. I am thinking about slow cooking my bacon inside to 145 or 150 then putting it outside to smoke for a few hours.  

One question I have is about was whether or not it would take smoke at that temp and if so how long I should cold smoke for? If it wasn't going to take smoke for some reason (assuming cooking removes the pellicle), I figured I could glaze the bacon (either before or after cooking) in honey or maple syrup to get the smoke to stick.  The second questing I have is is there some reason not to do that, such as it could take too much of the smoke and could give the bacon an acrid flavor?  If you are still with me this far in the post and have done this before or thought about it chime in.

Happy Holidays from Wisconsin. 

Cory

 

[SmokinAl]

Hey Cory,

Why not just cold smoke the bacon, period.

I never hot smoke bacon, your gonna cook it anyway.

Unless you want to eat it cold out of the fridge, I would just cold smoke it.

If you really want it to be cooked, then cold smoke it first, & then heat it up in the oven to 150.

Personally I think you get a much better final product just cold smoking it.

Al