Bacon Burnt Ends


 
Michael Iron

Michael Iron

TVWBB Member
Saturday finished curing 11.5 pounds of pork belly. Before I made bacon decided to cut a couple of pounds off one half and make some bacon burnt ends.

About noon started with the cubed cured pork loin. Chunks were large about 2" but knew it would shrink a lot.

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EVOO and Memphis rub with no salt, already had salt from the cure. Tossed and placed on SS cooking rack on top rack of the WSM at 250* stayed at 250* whole cook.

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Couple of hours bark is done.

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Pulled and put in pan topped with brown sugar, maple syrup, butter, and a little honey.

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Covered with aluminum foil and braised for a few more hours.

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Pretty much falling apart tender at this point. Didn't have the things on hand to make an apple glaze so just went with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce for an hour uncoverd. That is OK it worked.

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Meat candy is about the best I can describe it.

Made a BLT out of some of it. At least think it may qualify as a BLT? It was awesome! Not going to say that I will never make a BLT with bacon again as I have 10 pounds sitting in the fridge right now. But it was certainly over the top. Toasted potato bread, mayo, lettuce, and fresh (but small) tomato with the "bacon".

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Thanks for looking. And please don't tell my doctor about this!!
 
Man, I didn't need to see this....Now another "gotta do, BBQ" Absolutely amazing cook Michael
 
WOW!!! Michael that is outstanding. You nailed that one for sure and I'd take that BLT anytime.
 
Thank you all for the kind words. Proof that even a blind squirrel gets a lucky nut once in awhile ;) Chris Farley always makes me smile if not laugh out loud. In a van down by the river.

Matthew said:
I need to try this,... Few questions..

Cured or Fresh?
Total cook time?
Click to expand...

I did this with cured because I had just finished curing a large pork belly, almost 12 pounds. So cut a few pounds off after it had dried in the fridge. Figured if it went horribly wrong, which I doubted, would still have almost 10 pounds of bacon left. Absolutely no reason I can think of that you couldn't do it with fresh pork belly though. Not sure really even gain anything by curing first. And if you do cure first make sure what ever you use after that doesn't have any salt in it as most cures are plenty salty as it is.

I kept the WSM at 250* the whole cook. Did it pretty much like a chuckie burnt ends cook. Which I've done a number of. First create the bark. For this batch it was shy of 2 hours to get a good bark, it didn't take long closer to an hour and half.

The braise was closer to 2 hours.

A lot more fat rendered out than a chuckie cook of course and I poured most of it out. Next time I will leave about half of it in for the final step. That one was about an hour. Total time was a LOT faster than any other beef burnt ends I have done 4.5 - 5 hours total. Think with an apple glaze at the end it would be even better. But that is a personal preference of course. It still turned out pretty dang good maybe the best I have ever done.
 
Just add another "Looks great" top the pile...

I wish I could get the hang of doing burnt ends. I always end up with cubed jerky. Not that mind it so much, but that wasn't the plan. :rolleyes:
 
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