- Aug 15, 2014
- 101
- 88
Been doing various different methods lately. This morning I cooked up a mess of bacon on my 36" Blackstone and had a few notes.
Hot smoked bacon, as I've noticed before, when cooking does not leave nearly as much residue on the griddle (or pan). You know, when you've cooked a bunch of bacon and you go to scrape the cooking surface, or clean it or whatever, there's usually after doing a lot of bacon a pretty good fond on there that scrapes off? With hot smoked - almost nothing.
Hot smoked did not get nearly as crispy as cold smoked. Hot smoked had more of a hammy texture - *however* - the hot smoked bacon I did this morning was considerably thicker than the cold smoked I cooked up. My friend who I was making it for wanted it really thick, so it was probably twice the thickness of the cold smoked package I pulled out of the freezer. Thickness affects crispiness - obviously I would need to account for this by doing different batches and then slicing identical thicknesses to truly be able to tell. But... definitely seems from previous batches that this pretty well holds true as well - cold smoked seems to be crispier when cooked.
Hot smoked was felt to be 'smokier' by taste testers. Maybe because each slice was much thicker, therefore had more cubic centimeters of meat and thus more surface area with smoke adherent to it? I don't know. As far as how long it was smoked... well, the hot smoked got about 4h of cold smoke, then was hot smoked up to 150ish (another 4-6 hours), rested in the fridge for a night and a day and then sliced and frozen. The cold smoked probably got something like... 6-12 hours of cold smoke only. Then rested in the fridge for probably a couple of days (again, I've been doing different things, and I don't really take notes or label them) before being sliced, packaged and frozen. So there were some variables that certainly could have accounted for things.
Generally, the vote was for the hot smoked in terms of flavor, the cold smoked in terms of crispiness. I think I'll need to truly equalize all the variables to really get a definitive answer on the flavor question, though, really thick bacon is likely always going to be chosen by most people in my circle as more flavorful, I think, and they seemed to prefer this as a more important factor than the crispiness. Personally, the crisp to me is really important, I like my bacon very crisp, almost shatteringly crisp. But, oh well.
Just adding to the general knowledge base and experiences here.
Hot smoked bacon, as I've noticed before, when cooking does not leave nearly as much residue on the griddle (or pan). You know, when you've cooked a bunch of bacon and you go to scrape the cooking surface, or clean it or whatever, there's usually after doing a lot of bacon a pretty good fond on there that scrapes off? With hot smoked - almost nothing.
Hot smoked did not get nearly as crispy as cold smoked. Hot smoked had more of a hammy texture - *however* - the hot smoked bacon I did this morning was considerably thicker than the cold smoked I cooked up. My friend who I was making it for wanted it really thick, so it was probably twice the thickness of the cold smoked package I pulled out of the freezer. Thickness affects crispiness - obviously I would need to account for this by doing different batches and then slicing identical thicknesses to truly be able to tell. But... definitely seems from previous batches that this pretty well holds true as well - cold smoked seems to be crispier when cooked.
Hot smoked was felt to be 'smokier' by taste testers. Maybe because each slice was much thicker, therefore had more cubic centimeters of meat and thus more surface area with smoke adherent to it? I don't know. As far as how long it was smoked... well, the hot smoked got about 4h of cold smoke, then was hot smoked up to 150ish (another 4-6 hours), rested in the fridge for a night and a day and then sliced and frozen. The cold smoked probably got something like... 6-12 hours of cold smoke only. Then rested in the fridge for probably a couple of days (again, I've been doing different things, and I don't really take notes or label them) before being sliced, packaged and frozen. So there were some variables that certainly could have accounted for things.
Generally, the vote was for the hot smoked in terms of flavor, the cold smoked in terms of crispiness. I think I'll need to truly equalize all the variables to really get a definitive answer on the flavor question, though, really thick bacon is likely always going to be chosen by most people in my circle as more flavorful, I think, and they seemed to prefer this as a more important factor than the crispiness. Personally, the crisp to me is really important, I like my bacon very crisp, almost shatteringly crisp. But, oh well.
Just adding to the general knowledge base and experiences here.
