Everybody has an opinion here's mine.
Hogs were traditionally processed right on the family farm so it was done in cool weather and smoked right there in a smokehouse. My grandfather raised hogs commercially for a long time. I can still remember going there when I was young and going into the smokehouse with him it was huge and had lots of hams in there and sometimes bellies hanging as well.
So while not doing it like they did back then I do still cold smoke bacon the only exception being Canadian bacon which I do hot smoke so it can be used for making cold ham sandwiches. We don't eat any other type of bacon cold so it always gets cooked before consuming and if serving Canadian bacon for breakfast it gets heated up before serving. We always end up giving away some of the bacon and the people are told it has to be cooked before being consumed unless it's the Canadian bacon.
I as well as other members have found that most of the time bacon starts to render fat at anything much over 100 degrees so I try to keep the smoker under that other than the Canadian bacon which doesn't have as much fat to start with.
I was also taught to leave the bacon in the fridge for several days after smoking before slicing to kind of let the smoke mellow or even out or whatever it does. Much like we do with cheese after smoking.
I smoke for 8-10 hours a couple days if I have the time usually with pecan or hickory. Once in awhile I do use apple just for a change of pace. I have had a couple different smokehouses and have used wood splits in a separate firebox piped into the smokehouse and currently use the
amazen smokers to produce the smoke.
You didn't say how you were producing the smoke in your pellet grill nor did you say if you had the vent wide open.
Years ago I had a very good source of bellies and several of us SMF members got together and bought bellies that we cured and smoked at my place. It was like 200 lbs worth of bellies lol.
Sorry for the long post