I've wanted to try this forever, but I was always intimidated with the whole curing process, plus there wasn't room in our kitchen fridge for me to do it. Now that I have another fridge just for meat, I decided to go on and give it a try, with a little push from @SmokinEdge . I did a simple dry cure with cure#1, salt, and brown sugar for 12 days, turning and massaging it daily. I took it out of the cure, rinsed it off and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours, uncovered.
I was going to try to cold smoke it in my Camp Chef just using a pellet tube, but the temps were getting too hot for a cold smoke. I ended up turning the grill on and warm smoking it at 160, and pulled it when the internal temp. hit 145. It did get a few hours of smoke with just the tube burning, though. I used a 50/50 blend of Lumberjack cherry and hickory in both the tube and the grill hopper. I'm really pleased with the results, and have another piece getting ready to take a ride in the cure in the next day or two. Other than being meatier than belly bacon, I find the flavor to be pretty similar.
I was going to try to cold smoke it in my Camp Chef just using a pellet tube, but the temps were getting too hot for a cold smoke. I ended up turning the grill on and warm smoking it at 160, and pulled it when the internal temp. hit 145. It did get a few hours of smoke with just the tube burning, though. I used a 50/50 blend of Lumberjack cherry and hickory in both the tube and the grill hopper. I'm really pleased with the results, and have another piece getting ready to take a ride in the cure in the next day or two. Other than being meatier than belly bacon, I find the flavor to be pretty similar.
