Flavors for Bacon


 
Bacon hit 150 as soon as I stopped looking. Initial taste tests are in and all gauges point to delicious. The maple cured, and the garlic pepper are so far the best, with the mollasses and pepper possibly being too salty since it was on the end and was the thinnest. The only way to know for sure is to give it the old fry test... we'll have to wait and see
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I'll post pics tomorrow.

Josh
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Josh Z.:

As far as the cold smoke.. The recipe I used calls to smoke the bacon to 150 so it is not a cold smoke. I just used low temps to give it a little more time in the smoke. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Above post i typed in 140, that's a typo. To cold smoke something is to smoke it in a pit, smoker, or smokehouse and smoke at a temperature of 160 degrees or less. It's not the temp you take the meat to, it's the temp at which you are smoking the meat at. When i make my bacon i take the WSM up to 140 degrees for an hour to dry the outside of the bacon off. I then take the temp up to 160 and add wood and smoke it till i reach an internal temp of 140 degrees. HTH
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Ah, well I use had a lid temp of around 200 for a good portion of the smoke. Took the wood out after a couple hours and ramped the temp up to finish it off.

Pics are in!
Bacon Pic Thread

Thanks,
Josh
 
For posterity and keeping it all in the thread... The garlic and the maple cured were very good, but the molasses and pepper cured was not what I liked... it got the toss.

My next attempt will be a honey cured.

Josh
 
On a side note... my parents loved the molasses and pepper bacon. Its not for me, but it is obviously for some people.

Josh
 
Josh,

You inspired me to talk to my butcher and he made a special order. I will be picking up a couple of bellies on Thursday for $1.79/lb.

I'd like to use maple syrup in one of my cures. Do you have a recipe that uses it?

Jim
 
As promissed the bacon recipe I've been using is posted in the pork recipes. This is a work in progress since I tweaked it from a cook book. If it doesn't work for you well.... change it so it does
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Homemade Bacon Recipe

Jim you're getting better prices than me so best of luck makin the bacon!

Enjoy,
Josh
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Josh Z.:
Jim you're getting better prices than me so best of luck makin the bacon!

Enjoy,
Josh </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Josh,

You need to shop the pig.
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Jim
 
Good Ol' Piggly Wiggly aye. None of those around here, but if I drove up to my Grandma's in Door County there still might be one in business... I'm guessing that might just ofset the 20 cent savings that I'd be getting though.

Let me know how your bacon turns out! If you like garlic I highly recommend the garlic recipe. Its better than I imagined it would be and I thought it sounded great.

Josh
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Josh Z.:
Jim you're getting better prices than me so best of luck makin the bacon!

Enjoy,
Josh </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Josh,

It gets even better. My wife just picked up my twenty-two pounds of pork bellies and the marked price was only $1.69/lb. The Pig was running a 15% off meat sale, so the price at the register came out to $1.44/lb.

They also sell Tenderquick, which I could not find anywhere else. A very good trip to the market.

Jim
 
Three Cheers for the Pig!!

Hipphip Pork Bellies!
Hipphip Sales!!!!
Hipphip Tenderquick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(probably the hardest of the 3 to find for most although I discoverd that Meiers in my area normally has it on the shelves)

I'm gonna have my butcher get me some jowels and bellies again for more bacon, but I'm gonna wait till my arteries are a little less congested. Actually I gave 2/3 of my bacon away as gifts and split the rest with my wife for BLT's. I'm looking forward to trying it again and seeing if I can continue to improve the recipe.

GOod luck with your bacon and let us know how it goes.

Josh
 
A post that won't die........

I've been looking around for ideas and saw a place that does vanilla cinnamon bacon. How does this sound... Ginger Syrup Bacon or Ginger Syrup and Cinnamon Bacon? I'm looking to have a wide range of bacon flavors here!

Josh
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Josh Z.:
A post that won't die........ </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Josh,

Have you made any more bacon?

I made so much that I still pull it out of the freezer to slice. The smoke flavor from my beautiful cold smoker was less than adequate. So I re-smoked it at about 200F to an internal temperature of 140F. Much better flavor.

Jim
 
Jim,

Odd you should ask
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I just smoked about 20 pounds of belly and 6 pounds of jowel.....

I took them all to around 150. I really need to put up a picture of the great pork belly that I got off my pig that I bought from a farmer.... 3 inches thick at the thickest!

I talk a bit about it my other thread on tips for buying a whole hog... Hog tips and Bacon Rant

The only thing I changed as far as recipes go is that I added some crushed juniper berries to one of the garlic recipes. I didn't want to get to adventerous with this pork belly, I'll save the experiments for some lower quality pork.
 
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