First cold smoke buckboard bacon question?!?!


 
U

U. Jester

New member
I have been reading for months about home curing bacon and charcuterie in general. Figured since I have been smoking BBQ for years that I would give it a try. I had a few boston butts already so I butterflied them and used two different curing recipes to cure the meat for 10 days. I used an A-MAZ-N tube smoker and my performer to do a 5 hour cold smoke.

My question is about after the cold smoke..... I feel like 5 hours was pretty conservative after seeing people that cold smoke for 12+ hours, but the meat has a REALLY strong ashtray like smoke smell. I have the meat in gallon ziplock bags in the fridge and have not sliced or cooked any of the it yet. Is the strong smell normal with cold smoking? Do I let the meat rest like you do when you cold smoke cheese?

Any suggestions or advice is appreciated! Thank you in advance!!

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I've done bacon once - I've been to busy lately to do more. And I had the exact question as you, I thought it was WAY too smoky and a test piece that I fried up was so bitter it was inedible (to me).

Folks on the forum told me to wrap it and put in freezer for at least a week if not two - and then try it. Don't know why, but the smoke does mellow quite a bit during that time.

It wound up being awesome bacon, and I have plans to make it again pretty soon.

So, bag it up and freeze it for week or two. It'll be really good after that rest!
 
Sheila Cochran said:
I've done bacon once - I've been to busy lately to do more. And I had the exact question as you, I thought it was WAY too smoky and a test piece that I fried up was so bitter it was inedible (to me).

Folks on the forum told me to wrap it and put in freezer for at least a week if not two - and then try it. Don't know why, but the smoke does mellow quite a bit during that time.

It wound up being awesome bacon, and I have plans to make it again pretty soon.

So, bag it up and freeze it for week or two. It'll be really good after that rest!
Click to expand...

That's great to hear! I am going to slice tomorrow, vacuum seal, and freeze. Cannot wait to to fry a few pieces to test!! Thank you for the response.
 
The first batch I did, I put it in a zip-lock in the fridge for 2-3 days before slicing/freezing and it mellowed down quite a bit. The second batch I sliced immediately and put several slices in each Foodsaver bag, sealed, and froze. It mellowed down just about the same way. I'll be doing another belly starting later this week and I'm just going to slice immediately, bag up, and freeze.

So basically I don't think it makes much (if any) difference which way you do it, but letting it mellow out does make a difference.

Russ
 
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