AndyK
TVWBB All-Star
I just finished making an 11lb batch of bacon the other day.
I slightly modded my normal recipe and was very pleased with the outcome.
One of the main mods was I didn’t wash or rinse off the salt and aromatics when I was done curing.
I’ve always hated dumping all the pepper and good spice/flavors down the drain
Instead I did fry up a few slices to test for salt content and possible flavor mods.
Another thing I did different was not use my refrigerator to cure the belly in.
Instead I used a large cooler and changed out a frozen gallon of water daily.
I have a huge refrigerator but this was really nice not having a bunch of pork belly taking up all that room.
I did end up using the refrigerator for a good half day to dry off the belly and put a pelical (sp?) on the surface.
For an experiment I put a small but powerful fan in the refrigerator aimed on the meat to speed things up and that worked great.
I cold smoked the belly 4-5 hours on the first day at 75f using a serpentine style pellet smoke generator
The second day I hot smoked it to an internal temp of 150f using the briquette snake method and some hard wood wedges.
The snake method really worked well for this
I also used my bellows on these smokes.
I think changing it up and doing the hot smoke on the second day was a so so decision at best.
I did this because it didn’t cut well in my meat slicer even after a trip to the freezer on the first day.
Turns out I needed a new blade so I got that ordered.
The old blade was arced the last little bit and sharpening it didn’t seem to help.
If the new blade doesn’t correct this I will probably shop for a new slicer.
I think this one is about 30 years old.
Overall this cook turned out pretty good even with adding a second day of smoking.
I liked it enough to document it and add it to my recipe book.
Anyways here are some pics, less the forgotten dinner pic's.
I slightly modded my normal recipe and was very pleased with the outcome.
One of the main mods was I didn’t wash or rinse off the salt and aromatics when I was done curing.
I’ve always hated dumping all the pepper and good spice/flavors down the drain
Instead I did fry up a few slices to test for salt content and possible flavor mods.
Another thing I did different was not use my refrigerator to cure the belly in.
Instead I used a large cooler and changed out a frozen gallon of water daily.
I have a huge refrigerator but this was really nice not having a bunch of pork belly taking up all that room.
I did end up using the refrigerator for a good half day to dry off the belly and put a pelical (sp?) on the surface.
For an experiment I put a small but powerful fan in the refrigerator aimed on the meat to speed things up and that worked great.
I cold smoked the belly 4-5 hours on the first day at 75f using a serpentine style pellet smoke generator
The second day I hot smoked it to an internal temp of 150f using the briquette snake method and some hard wood wedges.
The snake method really worked well for this
I also used my bellows on these smokes.
I think changing it up and doing the hot smoke on the second day was a so so decision at best.
I did this because it didn’t cut well in my meat slicer even after a trip to the freezer on the first day.
Turns out I needed a new blade so I got that ordered.
The old blade was arced the last little bit and sharpening it didn’t seem to help.
If the new blade doesn’t correct this I will probably shop for a new slicer.
I think this one is about 30 years old.
Overall this cook turned out pretty good even with adding a second day of smoking.
I liked it enough to document it and add it to my recipe book.
Anyways here are some pics, less the forgotten dinner pic's.
