This is my first time making bacon this way in my Big Green Egg, so if it goes horribly wrong, well then it is what it is.
I got a good looking 11.5# pork belly from Costco and split it in two for easier handling. Using the Cure calculator I figured out the amount of Cure #1, salt and sugar to use as a baseline. I ended up trying two different styles. First I used just honey, salt and cure. The other slab I used regular sugar, salt, pepper and cure. I wanted to see if there was any flavor difference with the addition of pepper and if honey made a noticeable difference as well.
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
After getting everything trimmed up and measured out I put the bellies in Food Saver bags, put on the respective rubs (making sure all the cure stayed in the bags), labeled and then sealed.
These sat in the fridge for 13 days. I only went this long (I planned to pull them at 11 day) due to a sick child and just not having the time to make the next step.
After 13 days I pulled them out, rinsed them off and did a fry test (no picture, sorry). I ended up soaking both bellies for an hour to bring the saltiness down a bit.
I put them on a wire rack over a cookie sheet (and took up the entire bottom of our fridge, my wife is good to me!) for 2 days. I once again went longer than I planned, was only going to do it for 24 hours but we had a nice little "heat wave" come through that pushed the outside temperatures above where I wanted to cold smoke.
My A-Maze-N Pellet smoker at the bottom of the LBGE with Cherry pellets (which are really cherry/oak)
This is where I ran into my first "I didn't plan this as well I thought" moments. The slabs were bigger than the real estate on my Egg! This took some moving around, but I checked and rotated them on a regular basis so hopefully I got even-enough smoking on both pieces. I will need to get myself a second gate. Oh. Darn.
I ended up doing three 10 hour smokes (that's about as long of a burn as I get from the AMNPS, give or take 30min)
Various attempts over the course of the smoke to get good coverage, this was as I started my second 10 hour run.
Finally just jammed them together for my last run.
After the final smoked I pulled them off and put them in Food Saver bags and sealed. These are going to rest probably for 2 weeks until I can get my slicer back and get them cut up and frozen. I've seen many people here who go from the smoker, back to the wire rack and let them rest uncovered in the fridge but I just don't have the time with the holidays for that.
Thanks for looking, I'll update again once I can slice and get a final taste test.
I got a good looking 11.5# pork belly from Costco and split it in two for easier handling. Using the Cure calculator I figured out the amount of Cure #1, salt and sugar to use as a baseline. I ended up trying two different styles. First I used just honey, salt and cure. The other slab I used regular sugar, salt, pepper and cure. I wanted to see if there was any flavor difference with the addition of pepper and if honey made a noticeable difference as well.
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
After getting everything trimmed up and measured out I put the bellies in Food Saver bags, put on the respective rubs (making sure all the cure stayed in the bags), labeled and then sealed.
These sat in the fridge for 13 days. I only went this long (I planned to pull them at 11 day) due to a sick child and just not having the time to make the next step.
After 13 days I pulled them out, rinsed them off and did a fry test (no picture, sorry). I ended up soaking both bellies for an hour to bring the saltiness down a bit.
I put them on a wire rack over a cookie sheet (and took up the entire bottom of our fridge, my wife is good to me!) for 2 days. I once again went longer than I planned, was only going to do it for 24 hours but we had a nice little "heat wave" come through that pushed the outside temperatures above where I wanted to cold smoke.
My A-Maze-N Pellet smoker at the bottom of the LBGE with Cherry pellets (which are really cherry/oak)
This is where I ran into my first "I didn't plan this as well I thought" moments. The slabs were bigger than the real estate on my Egg! This took some moving around, but I checked and rotated them on a regular basis so hopefully I got even-enough smoking on both pieces. I will need to get myself a second gate. Oh. Darn.
I ended up doing three 10 hour smokes (that's about as long of a burn as I get from the AMNPS, give or take 30min)
Various attempts over the course of the smoke to get good coverage, this was as I started my second 10 hour run.
Finally just jammed them together for my last run.
After the final smoked I pulled them off and put them in Food Saver bags and sealed. These are going to rest probably for 2 weeks until I can get my slicer back and get them cut up and frozen. I've seen many people here who go from the smoker, back to the wire rack and let them rest uncovered in the fridge but I just don't have the time with the holidays for that.
Thanks for looking, I'll update again once I can slice and get a final taste test.
