Bacon made easy


 
Thanks Bob & JR. They... or should I say one of them is some great tasting bacon. Froze the other.
I think it's the "Bacon Days of Summer" around here. BLTs.... bacon for dessert.... bacon & eggs ..... bacon snacks.....
It's too good for ABTs - or is it?
 
Okay I got my MTQ today and will start the curing process tomorrow. I understand cool smoke to at least 135 but not more than 150. What I'm confused on is what temp range is cool smoke. What I'm reading is all over the map. Help.
 
Rich,
I shoot for around 175 and no more than 200.
Ideally I want about 150 for the first couple or more hours, but I like a fairly heavy smoke.
Be sure to rinse well after the cure time, and change the water several times if soaking, since it can be a bit salty otherwise.

I'm digging out my gooey butter cake recipe for our AZ trip, hope Jim brings some Spotted Cow brews!

PS, you can go a scant tablespoon of TQ per lb.
I add maybe a hair more than 3/4 Tablespoon per lb.
 
Bob Correll said:
Rich,
I shoot for around 175 and no more than 200.
Ideally I want about 150 for the first couple or more hours, but I like a fairly heavy smoke.
Be sure to rinse well after the cure time, and change the water several times if soaking, since it can be a bit salty otherwise.

I'm digging out my gooey butter cake recipe for our AZ trip, hope Jim brings some Spotted Cow brews!

PS, you can go a scant tablespoon of TQ per lb.
I add maybe a hair more than 3/4 Tablespoon per lb.
Click to expand...

Gooey butter cake sounds great.

This bacon thing is a salt treat which I have to do in moderation. So I'll try your 3/4+ per pound and rinse the hell out of it. Thanks for that info and the temps it really helps.
Going to do brown sugar and black pepper with hickory smoke, just a little as hickory can get away from you pretty quick.
Thanks again Bob
 
Bob- What a great thread. I have read the whole thing and plan on starting a belly this weekend.
For a first timer would you recommend removing the skin prior to curing the belly?
What does plunging bacon into ice water do when it has reached desired internal temp?
After plunging do you immediately slice or put in freezer to harden up a little and then slice?
 
Tommy B said:
Bob- What a great thread. I have read the whole thing and plan on starting a belly this weekend.
For a first timer would you recommend removing the skin prior to curing the belly?
What does plunging bacon into ice water do when it has reached desired internal temp?
After plunging do you immediately slice or put in freezer to harden up a little and then slice?
Click to expand...
Tommy,
If you plan to remove the skin at some point, then I would do it before curing, it helps with the cure process and allows smoke to stay on both sides.
The ice water bath, bacon in a bag of course, stops heat from raising the meat's temperature beyond your goal.
Once chilled, I get as much air out of the bag as possible, seal, and place in the fridge.
You can slice some off and fry it right away after chilling, but it mellows out a bit if given a day or two.
Cook using medium heat, the sugars can burn if the heat is too high.
Freeze sliced or unsliced, folks do it both ways.

If by chance you got the belly from Costco, it might not have the skin, mine did, but others say their's did not.

Enjoy, and share your results please.
 
I smoked my first bacon yesterday following Bob's advice as best I could. Weather man said no, nada, not going to happen for rain or winds. Thought great will make this easy, twenty minuets into the smoke a monsoon hits with 40 mph winds a pouring rain and stays like that the whole cook. Wanted to go 150 or so for the first couple of hours then bump it up so it didn't get over smoked. The mini just wouldn't bump up at all with the wind and the rain and ran 163 tops.
Came out perfect though, couldn't be happier.
Here's the cook
http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?61237-Makin-Bacon-Mr-Corrells-Way

If you look close that rain is almost horizontal.
S1033758_zpsz4amnwcr.jpg
 
Welp... "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".
Glad the cook was successful.
I'm fortunate in that my front porch is covered. It's not a lot of fun doing a hot squat & moving a cooker around to the front of the house in the rain.
However, that's saved my bacon more than once.:D
 
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I had my bacon adventure this weekend! Bob thanks for all the advice. I used Bob's basic instructions on the intro post. I got my belly from an Asian supermarket in town. They had quite the assortment of "exotic meat cuts." You could but a 6 pack of whole frozen duck heads which is something I have never seen for sale before! I found the tenderquick at a Kroger supermarket in town. After the cure I seasoned one belly with black pepper and the other with brown sugar. I smoked at 175 degrees on my 18 WSM but the temp got away from me and ended up around 200 towards the end of the cook. I am not sure what happened but the belly cooked REALLY fast... It was at 145 degrees internally after an hour and a half. I was using my partyQ and maverick 733. Both of those devices said temp was in 175-200 range... I thought the meat smoked quickly and when my maverick meat probe said it was at 145 internal I used an instant read probe and got the same reading... I pulled it off and plunged it in ice water to stop it from cooking. I cut off a few test pieces and then put the slab in the fridge to slice the next day. The bacon was great! I made some nice hand cut thick slices! I really couldn't taste the brown sugar flavor. If I had to be critical I would say it was a bit too salty. I'll do a better job of rinsing after the cure next go around. I will be making again soon! Thanks for looking!

After cure but prior to being put on the cooker.


Just pulled off the smoker.


finished product


black pepper


fried up in cast iron
 
Took a while but read the whole thread, phew. Decided to put a loin in the cure, cause momma likes canadian bacon best, and I don't have any belly. :( I can't remember reading about whether to remove the outer fat layer or leave on.
So I researched a few other recipes and some recommended to remove the fat, but...some fat is good right? amen, so,... what do you all recommend?
Leave it on and enjoy the added goodness? or remove it cause the cure penetrates better?
The loin had about 1/4" or a little more fat cap which I did remove, but I saved it for sausage so it's all good.
Thanks in advance.
 
Well the C Bacon just came off the smoker, pretty darn good if you listen to my wife.
This went into the cure late on the 18th, so just short of 8 days, used a basic cure mix the equivalent to Mortons TQ, slathered with Maple syrup at the start of cure and again just before smoking. Time to 145 was 3 hours at about 215 degrees, with cherry wood smoke the whole time.
I cooked it on a WSM 22 and used a fuse with reg. KK briquettes.
While I was at it, cooked a Venison roast to 145 deg. and still have 2 racks of SLC ribs finishing up, bumped up the heat a little to 230.
This was the first time I cranked up my new to me WSM, all in all, EZ PZ!
Thanks Bob for starting this new obsession, and to all the others who chimed in with their results.
Sorry no pictures, :( It's all I can do just to work these forums,lol
 
The saying around here is, show us pictures, or it didn't happen. :)
We'll take your word for this one.
Glad you like your CB and new obsession!

I smoked a 2.75 lb. belly bacon slab today, I see BLTS in my near future.
 
Bob, congratulations on your 75k+ hits on this bacon sticky. It’s obvious that the word got out that this was the place to go to find out how to make bacon the easy way.
Wonder how many of those that just lurk or are not members used your method to make great bacon. I bet it’s in the tens of thousands.
Who knows you could be responsible for Costco starting to carry pork bellies.
Again thank you for sharing this great method of making bacon and being there to help along the way and I’m quite sure many others are thanking you also.
 
I have some pork belly chilling in the fridge. Hope to smoke it next weekend. I'll snap some pics and report back.
 
Quick question. I'm only making about a 2 and 1/2 lb not a whole slab of bacon. Is 6-7 days in the MTQ too long for a smaller piece?
 
I gave this a go as well. My bacon tasted like bacon, but the salt content was so high, that it's rendered the product inedible.

I was unable to follow the timeline as Bob has suggested. Theres was simply too much going on and I couldn't get to it. My pork cured for 9 days. I washed it off and it sat in the fridge for another two days before I was finally able to get around to smoking it. Also, the smoking took nearly 7 hours even though the temps sat above 160 for the better part of the cook.

I've read others really washing off the MTQ after the curing is done. I tried to do this, although it's hard to tell if you're washing anything off as there's nothing visible on the belly itself.

Perhaps following the 7 day cure more closely would leave the product less salty. Maybe I put too much of the MTQ on. I'm not really sure. I'll try this again, but in smaller batches until I figure this out. This time around I just flushed away $20. However, it was still fun!
 
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