My bacon and a little reflection :)

It looks like a few people have been bit by the bacon bug lately… including me. Thanks for everyone’s help. My only regret I was nervous about it and did not make enough! I only ended up with maybe 2 pounds. Next time at least 8 pounds. And when I talk about making so much bacon it’s not for me to eat. It was delicious but I would much rather give it to others to try.

Honestly not to get too mushy around here but a huge part of this new “hobby” for me (smoking, and now trying a little curing) is to share it with my friends and family and watch them look at me with disbelief and say “you MADE this?” it feels great to hear stuff like that, I’m sure most of you feel the same.

Anyway everyone should try making bacon. It really is too easy there is just the wait time.

My first tiny test slab. I had the butcher trim the rind for me.



Ready to go in the bag (next time I am going to food saver seal without drawing the air out I think just so the wife doesn’t get nervous of it opening in the fridge)



About 6.5 days later… I was expecting some sort of smell ..nothing.. I was pretty amazed



Going to test a few pieces before setting it back in the fridge before smoking… notice the little strip of rind on the left …not a huge deal it gave it a tiny “farmy” taste but it was good…



After the smoke got it up to 120 in the WSM with a couple handfuls of kingsford then finished in the oven at 200 till it hit 150 I trimmed a little more rind off as well.



And there you go…cant wait for christmas morning breakfast with the inlaws now yeah I made it myself, you like it? it wasen't that hard to make no big deal

Pretty amazing isn't it? Not to mention all the variations of flavor to explore in the cure!
The most difficult part in the process is finding nice belly. That said, almost any belly you
find will make much better bacon then the commercial junk. Nice job.

Looks good. What did you use to cure?

I used the basic dry cure mix from the Charcuterie book, I just added a some extra raw sugar.

Great job, Yianni. Nice, meaty piece of belly too.

Very nice Yianni. I just put a whole belly in cure tonight, can't wait until it's done.

Great work, Yianni. I admit to loving that amazed look and, "You MADE this????" Last time I made four belly hunks totally about 20 pounds, and gave a lot away a Xmas gifts. This time my cure included two smashed garlic cloves, a bit of maple sugar, and some pepper. Came out great.