Lost my Virginity this weekend

[bakerman]

Hello Smokers,

I had my first chance to pull some fatties this weekend. I did a breakfast and pizza fattie. Assembly took some getting used to but I managed to get it done. The Breakfast fattie blew a gasket and ended up scattered all over the cutting board. It still didn't last very long, between my son and I we ate the whole thing.

I have not yet served up the pizza fattie, maybe tonight.

I do have a question about the doneness of the bacon. The checkerboard effect leaves me wondering if the bacon that is not exposed during cooking is actually done.

I ate it and I'm still here, but I have others who are not as trusting.

Is there any way to know for sure? After I smoked them I put them in the broiler for a few minutes and that helped crisp up what was visible, but still didn't cook the un-exposed.

Should I fry the bacon slightly before hand?

Other than that the fatties were very good. I will try again maybe with some other ideas as to ingredients.

Keep Smokin'

 

[dougmays]

Hey Bakerman,

I know what you mean the bacon that gets overlapped doesn't look very appealing. Now this is my opinion and someone might have a little more information about this but since the temperature in the smoker is more then enough to cook a thin slice of bacon and its on the outside of the whole thing for atleast an hour its my opinion that it is cooked enough to consumption. In all the bacon wrapped posts i've never heard of anyone precooking the bacon.

Its certainly something i've though about as well though.

Smoking is one of those hobbies that you'll get alot of nay-sayers and question askers. I always have to explain that some thing may not appear as they expect because you are not directly cooking over a fire source, but the heat is there. That's why chickens will have some pink in them as well.

Just my 2 cents

 

[bakerman]

Thanks for the response. I didn't think it was dangerous to eat but I know sure as sunrise my BMU will say "that's not cooked". I was thinking maybe a slight fry before hand but then the weave would prove to shrunken.

I read somewhere hereabouts one smoker made the weave and broiled it for a few minutes before on both sides. But I can't find the thread now.

 

[dougmays]

yea i would imagine it might be hard to wrap once cooked a little bit.

another idea is to unwrap when the fattie is done and fry up the bacon till crisp, crumble up and pour back over fattie or whatever else was wrapped for topping

 

[bwarbiany]

I'm with doug on this. The bacon weave is on the outside of the fattie and exposed to a 250+ degree "oven" essentially throughout the whole >1 hour cook. It's cooked to safe temp. 

If you want to help crisp up the bacon, try to smoke it hotter, like 300-325 degrees. Nothing in the recipe really needs "low & slow", and cooking hotter will help give the bacon a bit better appearance.

Oh, and one more thing...