Hey all, I've been wanting to do this for a while and since I was off on paternity leave I thought I might as well knock it out. I should state that I did not have access to any pork bellies so I used the fattest part of a butt, I think guys are calling this Buck Board Bacon (not sure on this).
I started the cure based on when I thought we would have our baby but that never works out. So the Bacon had a few extra days in the cure, but I don't think it hurt the flavor.
I followed this recipe for my cure ( I used Morton's Sugar Cure, which can be substituted for TenderQuick) : http://onceachef.com/2010/11/23/makin-bacon/
I did back down the brown sugar by just a bit to offset the sugar that is part of the "Sugar Cure".
Into the cure for 13days
I flipped and massaged the meat in the cure nearly daily. After 13 days I took the meat out and rinsed the excess cure off and placed the meat on a cooling rack in my fridge for 2 days. Then on to the smoker for some cold smoking.
The day of smoking it was 20 degrees and about 20-30mph winds so I had to strap down the smoker. The smoker internal never got above 50 degrees, is this too cold for "cold smoking"???
10hrs of smoke is all I gave these chunks and after doing some futher reading I think 10 was probably a little shore to give me a good smoke flavor so I'll play with that in the future. These are fresh of the smoker.
I wrapped these up and stuck them back in the fridge for 3 days before slicing. Here's the finished product. Fried up some and its darn good. Wife says we won't be buying bacon anytime soon!!
I'll take any comments or suggestions you guys have. Thanks!
I started the cure based on when I thought we would have our baby but that never works out. So the Bacon had a few extra days in the cure, but I don't think it hurt the flavor.
I followed this recipe for my cure ( I used Morton's Sugar Cure, which can be substituted for TenderQuick) : http://onceachef.com/2010/11/23/makin-bacon/
I did back down the brown sugar by just a bit to offset the sugar that is part of the "Sugar Cure".
Into the cure for 13days
I flipped and massaged the meat in the cure nearly daily. After 13 days I took the meat out and rinsed the excess cure off and placed the meat on a cooling rack in my fridge for 2 days. Then on to the smoker for some cold smoking.
The day of smoking it was 20 degrees and about 20-30mph winds so I had to strap down the smoker. The smoker internal never got above 50 degrees, is this too cold for "cold smoking"???
10hrs of smoke is all I gave these chunks and after doing some futher reading I think 10 was probably a little shore to give me a good smoke flavor so I'll play with that in the future. These are fresh of the smoker.
I wrapped these up and stuck them back in the fridge for 3 days before slicing. Here's the finished product. Fried up some and its darn good. Wife says we won't be buying bacon anytime soon!!
I'll take any comments or suggestions you guys have. Thanks!