First Smoke on an 18.5


 

MattyBrass

New member
Hey,

I just acquired an 18.5 and i have 10~ lbs of pork belly I started curing which I plan to hot smoke over Memorial Day Weekend. I plan on using the minion method with apple wood chunks or a mix of apple and pecan and im hoping to settle the temp around 225. Any advice on cook time/amount of coals etc?

Link incase photos dont embed. https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOEfiiWV_kmNfB5u8c294CJms90hEffjtiNnpTTQsTi5cu_ngwQaRsXLa7XgLW6Ow?key=elFyZnBiOXM3TzBiV3N4RU1ieTR3OW96c1U4ZzlB

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So, just to be clear....you're making bacon not just smoking pork belly? I ask because you said curing, but then you said hot smoke. If you're making bacon, you can bring the temps way down and expose it to smoke longer. When I'm smoking my bacon, I arrange the coals in a snake that is only two coals high. I make my snake up against the charcoal ring and take it 3/4 of the way around it, then, I bring a line in towards the center so it looks like a "G." (I don't know why I do that, I just do. Maybe it was because I wanted as long a snake as possible.) I'll start the snake off with 4-5 lit coals and fill the water dish with cool water. Doing that, I can maintain a temperature around 150* and I usually go about 4-5 hours. Then, I take all of the unburnt coals and stack them at the point where the coals are burning and bring the temp up to about 190 or so until the bacon reaches 145*.

If you're smoking it for regular old pork belly, I'll defer to people who do that. For me, I just want my bellies to be bacon. :wsm:
 
Correct, im making bacon not just smoking pork belly. I've done this a few times but not on my own smoker. The last batch i did was split into portions, some of which was was cold smoked and some was hot smoked. I preferred the hot smoked, i found the cold smoked too smokey (I've never thought there was such a thing before). My last batch was hot smoked around 200-225 until the internal temp was brought up to 160 then removed for slicing and frying/baking. Some was sliced then vacuum sealed and frozen for consumption later.
 

 

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