First Bacon Attempt wIth BB

[AngleAway]

No worries. It’s just oxidation. This happens in the curing process and is not a problem. Once cooked the color will be uniform. Carry on.

Excellent, thank you sir!

 

[DRKsmoking]

Rolling along great. into the smoker and waiting . going to be great

David

 

[AngleAway]

So, the smoke is done. Struggled with my dads MES to get any smoke production at 165, but did end up squealing out smoke and I’m happy with the color. Tried a few slices got off the smoker and it seems mostly like ham, and I’ll definitely be backing the salt down next time. We’ll see how it develops in the fridge. No matter what I have learned a good bit. I ended up bumping temp to 185 so I could hit 145 internal. Not much fat rendering, but this definitely seems to be more akin to ham than bacon on the hot tester pieces.

I’m considering that the Mes temp probe may have been significantly off. This MES not being mine, it’s untested and I’m not at home so I don’t have a thermapen or any other temp device to cross check.

Overall it’s great tasting pork. Not a bad starting point! I’ll update in a day or two after I slice for vacuum sealing.

Oh, and a couple shots of my dads newly acquired restomod Chevy truck, and his eager assistants that have been with me through every moment of the cook, hoping for a crumb.

 

[DRKsmoking]

Love the looks of your BBB, and I bet you will love the flavor after the rest.

Truck and pups just beautiful

David

 

[DougE]

Good looking bacon! Nice color, too. Bacon straight off the smoker like does taste like ham because it basically is fatty ham. Fry a little up and it will taste like bacon.

 

[tbern]

beautiful looking bacon with the color!! one nice looking truck with the 2 nice helpers laying by it!! thanks for the great pictures!

 

[SmokinEdge]

Those are purdy. Nice work. The rest for a couple days in the fridge will balance the flavor a lot, enjoy.

 

[JC in GB]

Looks good. The waste cure I encountered dry brining is why I adapted my process to the 10% cure method. In this method, you add 10% of the meat weight in water and mix a brine for the total weight of meat and water. This method has worked well for me. As far as I know, it is also used in commercial processing. Injecting a 10% brine into pork bellies before going to the vacuum tumbler.

Hope you found this useful.

JC

 

[bill1]

I knew this was an old thread when I saw pork under a dollar a pound. Can't even find chicken for that any more.