Will be ready to smoke my bacon on Monday...

[SherryT]

Took it out of the brine last night, rinsed, patted dry, put on a rack over a cookie sheet and into the fridge for a couple of days.

I deliberately (heh heh heh) left the skin on one of the pieces, so do I (cold) smoke this skin up or down?

 

[SherryT]

Just took my bacon out of the smoker...let's just say it looks like I won't have to buy seasoning bacon for a while and leave it at that.

 

[myownidaho]

Pics or it didn’t happen!!!

 

[SherryT]

I'll expand my "let's just say" and "leave it at that" to this for now...let's just say as I was washing dishes, I began to smell the aroma of sizzling fat on a grill, so I looked out the window and saw flames.

I caught it in time (read as "the bacon is still fry-able"), but WHAT A MESS IN MY SMOKER!

Will post pics later in the day when I do a fry test.

 

[SherryT]

Pics...



It got too warm in my smoker and some of the fat DID render out before I caught it (yes, there were flames).

I fried up a few pieces...it fried like bacon, it looked like bacon, it felt like bacon, and it tasted like bacon (actually, it tasted WONDERFUL...not too salty OR too smokey!), so it's not a loss.

What I did wrong...I did not monitor the smoker temp, I did not monitor the IT, and I "think" I let it smoke too long for "my" smoker.

I had "cold smoke" on the brain and just assumed it wouldn't get too hot with a pellet tray (DIY tray...worked flawlessly, but it is slightly larger than the retail tray, so there's that).

Going forward, I'll MONITOR THE TEMPS and, perhaps, smoke for a couple of hours on Day1 and then repeat on Day2.

ETA...I also am going to try to find another local source for belly...most of what I got was, IMO, a bit thin.

 

[tropics]

Sherry T I had some bellies were to thin and decided to make ground formed Bacon,it came out great.I have to give you a point for trying and sharing Points
Richie
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/ground-formed-bacon-money-shot.265803/

 

[SherryT]

Sherry T I had some bellies were to thin and decided to make ground formed Bacon,it came out great.I have to give you a point for trying and sharing Points
Richie
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/ground-formed-bacon-money-shot.265803/

Out what I have left, there are two not-so-thin pieces (about 3 lbs each IIRC), so I plan on making bacon out of those, but the rest will be used as sausage fat.

Gonna put a butterflied butt in the brine bucket this evening for BB bacon and give that a go...if it turns out good and I cannot find better looking belly locally, that'll be my bacon going forward.

 

[SherryT]

Hmmm Richie...I went and had a look at your formed bacon...intriguing!

I'm betting you could do the same for "chopped ham" lunchmeat as well...grind up a loin and proceed as you did for the bacon, just pack into a round mold (empty soup cans?), weight it down, and have at it!

 

[Rings Я Us]

Looks good.. You only used pellets and the smoker got to hot? That's odd..:D

 

[myownidaho]

Lesson learned!...and tasty bacon!

 

[SherryT]

Looks good.. You only used pellets and the smoker got to hot? That's odd..:D

I didn't monitor the smoker temp, so I can't know just HOW warm it got, but it was enough to render the fat.

I had another thought, though...it was VERY windy, so I guess a couple of good gusts into the vents could have caused the pellets to flame up and THAT'S what caused it to get too hot...maybe???

Anyway, the heat from the grease/flames weakened/damaged my DIY tray (grill toppers from WM, lightweight metal mesh), so I'll be ordering the Amazen tray this Friday.

 

[Rings Я Us]

You could have put the pellets in the bushel basket on a rack suspended just below the smoker . No water pan and the bacon on top rack . That would give a good foot of clearance or so. The pellets shouldn't be able to flame even if they sit out on the cement. Should just smolder .. at least my tray never lit up after I blew it out. It had open air under it.

 

[Rings Я Us]

Like so..

 

[Rings Я Us]

You were just cold smoking with pellets right?

 

[SherryT]

You could have put the pellets in the bushel basket on a rack suspended just below the smoker . No water pan and the bacon on top rack . That would give a good foot of clearance or so. The pellets shouldn't be able to flame even if they sit out on the cement. Should just smolder .. at least my tray never lit up after I blew it out. It had open air under it.

I put the tray inside my empty coal pan (which sits inside the bucket), removed the lower rack (hence, no water pan), made hooks to hang the bacon out of metal skewers, and hung the slabs below the top rack...they had more than ample clearance (the "slabs" were only about 12" long)

You were just cold smoking with pellets right?

Yes...pellets only. I lit the tray at the opening, allowed a good coal to form, blew it out, made sure it was ONLY smoldering/smoking, and placed it in the coal pan.

Could I have got my smoker sealed up TOO tight when I did the mods? The first couple of times I fired it up, there was just a little smoke escaping around the lid, but, since then, the ONLY place smoke escapes (that I can see anyway) is at the top vent.

 

[Rings Я Us]

Sounds good. As long as you have that top vent and most of the smoke goes out there.. sounds right.. people do the top vent as opposed to just letting smoke escape from around the lid because around the lid doesn't let smoke pass over meat as much as a top vent.. yeah. The bacon should not have ever been hot enough to drip. And not sure why your pellets started flaming up.. they shouldn't do that in cold smoking mode. . Usually they flame up because of excessive heat.

 

[Rings Я Us]

You really don't need much of any bottom damper open with pellets. Just enough air to keep them alive. Maybe next time cut back bottom air dampers.. top open is good.. I would venture to say it will work next try. Lol good stuff!

 

[SherryT]

I'll try limiting the bottom vents somewhat next time...AND I'll use my probes! :D

 

[Bearcarver]

I didn't monitor the smoker temp, so I can't know just HOW warm it got, but it was enough to render the fat.

I had another thought, though...it was VERY windy, so I guess a couple of good gusts into the vents could have caused the pellets to flame up and THAT'S what caused it to get too hot...maybe???

Anyway, the heat from the grease/flames weakened/damaged my DIY tray (grill toppers from WM, lightweight metal mesh), so I'll be ordering the Amazen tray this Friday.

Absolutely---A couple of drafts can easily flare up pellets. It's no different than being able to blow on an AMNPS to get a flame to rise up from the smoldering pellet cherry.

Hope your Smoker is OK. The Bacon looks fine.

Bear

 

[daveomak]

Sherry, morning..... Try smoldering dust in your pellet tray.... Dust burns MUCH cooler....
How to make dust from pellets... the easy way.... well, easier than other methods....

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/making-dust-from-pellets.271863/


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