Michael Richards
TVWBB Emerald Member
After seeing Rich G's Canadian Bacon post a few weeks ago
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I decided to try to cure and smoke my first piece of meat. With Rich's post and his guidance to Bob's Bacon Made Easy Post
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I got a 2 and a half pound piece of pork belly. I order Morton's Tender Quick and on Sunday June 14, 2020 I added the MTQ as directed by Bob then I added some light brown sugar and some course black pepper. My goal was to smoke it on Father's day, but after flipping it once daily, last Saturday I just did not trust that it had firmed up enough yet and decided to let it go a few more days. I am glad I did because it felt very different by Tuesday night. I knew Wednesday was going to be a crazy day so I decided to smoke it on yesterday, Thursday, June 25, 2020. Washed it off on Wednesday night, let it open in the frig over night. Then using a mini minion method (3 Weber Briquettes), and pecan and local sugar maple wood I put the meat on when the WSM was at 180. I was able to keep the temps below 200 until I went into a work video conference that went longer then it was supposed to and when I got out of it the temps were at 245. I got the temps back down to 210 and by that time the Bacon was at 150 and I pulled it. I really thought it would take longer to get it up to temp, but it was only the smoker for 2 maybe 3 hours. I wrapped it then put it in an ice bath and then left it in there a few hours as I got bogged down with work. At 3 pm I took it out of the ice and it looked perfect. I started to cut it and realized to get a better slice I needed to cut it in half and make half slices. The smell of the pecan and sugar maple smoke smelled so good!! Fried up a little skillet to try. Yeah this is the best thing I have made on the WSM yet! The mix of the smoke and the brown sugar is amazing, the pepper is mild, but there, not to salty at all. I ended up frying up 3 small skillet yesterday for the family. Today I cooked up about half that was left and still have have another batch now in the freezer. I will be doing this again. I am going to the Butcher tomorrow so looking for 5 to 6 lbs to cut in half to fit a piece on both the top and bottom racks of the WSM 14.
So here is the day the MTQ, brown sugar, and pepper was added.
Here it is as it hit the WSM.
Here it is after taken out of the ice bath.
Half of it sliced.
Here is it all sliced up.
Here is a piece fried up.
Thanks guys, this place is awesome, I continue to do things I would never have trusted myself to do before finding you all!
Loin Bacon & Hunsaker Rack
Hey, VWB'ers! I just put up another batch of loin bacon (Canadian Bacon, if you prefer), and used the Hunsaker Rack with meat hooks for my WSM22, so thought I'd share. I procured a whole, boneless loin from CostCo, and cut it into thirds. After weighing each third, I used the dry cure...
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Bacon made easy
Update from Bob & Chris: 10/5/2019 It was recently brought to our attention by a TVWBB member that the Morton salt website says the following about Tender Quick: "We cannot recommend Morton Tender Quick for use with pork belly or bacon. Due to the differing fat content of individual cuts, the...
tvwbb.com
So here is the day the MTQ, brown sugar, and pepper was added.
Here it is as it hit the WSM.
Here it is after taken out of the ice bath.
Half of it sliced.
Here is it all sliced up.
Here is a piece fried up.
Thanks guys, this place is awesome, I continue to do things I would never have trusted myself to do before finding you all!
