With all the first time bacon posts I see on here (and the veterans bacon posts). I decided I needed to try it out. I've made Canadian Bacon, and Buck Board Bacon, so it's not like I'm a complete noob to bacon, but this time I needed to do "real" bacon, with some belly.
I went in on 1/3 of a case of belly with a couple friends and ended up with a strip and a half. I cut them up to give me 6 nice "workable" pieces. 3 in the freezer (just in case I screwed up the first batch), and 3 went in Pop's brine. (sorry no early pictures).
I pulled it out of Pop's brine on Thursday evening after 13 days, did a quick test fry to make sure it was not too salty, and thought it was perfect, (I had cut the salt to 3/4 cup).
First thing this morning I fired up the Treager, to warm it up, as it is a little cooler that I would have liked today (rain, rain, rain). Shut the Treager down, as the plan is not to "hot" smoke it.
Laid out the 3 slabs and fired up the A-Maze-N dust smoker filled with apple dust, lit from both sides.
Here are a few pics of them in the smoker with about half if the first rows of dust gone:
I will post more pictures as the process progresses.
The plan is to burn the A-Maze-N 2x, then pull and wrap to let it mellow a couple days.
Fortunately, I have 2 lbs of my last batch of buck board left, so I won't be tempted to bad, and should be able to leave it alone until it rest/mellows.
Stay tuned for more pictures later!
I went in on 1/3 of a case of belly with a couple friends and ended up with a strip and a half. I cut them up to give me 6 nice "workable" pieces. 3 in the freezer (just in case I screwed up the first batch), and 3 went in Pop's brine. (sorry no early pictures).
I pulled it out of Pop's brine on Thursday evening after 13 days, did a quick test fry to make sure it was not too salty, and thought it was perfect, (I had cut the salt to 3/4 cup).
First thing this morning I fired up the Treager, to warm it up, as it is a little cooler that I would have liked today (rain, rain, rain). Shut the Treager down, as the plan is not to "hot" smoke it.
Laid out the 3 slabs and fired up the A-Maze-N dust smoker filled with apple dust, lit from both sides.
Here are a few pics of them in the smoker with about half if the first rows of dust gone:
I will post more pictures as the process progresses.
The plan is to burn the A-Maze-N 2x, then pull and wrap to let it mellow a couple days.
Fortunately, I have 2 lbs of my last batch of buck board left, so I won't be tempted to bad, and should be able to leave it alone until it rest/mellows.
Stay tuned for more pictures later!
