First homemade bacon

Lux Man

AK Subscriber
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I made my first homemade bacon. First: the pros and then the cons.
Pros: nice and lean, not so dang salty, smoked as much or as little as you want Cons: none yet- oh you do have to slice it.

I bought a couple of 3 lbs.slabs of pork belly but it was very lean, maybe 75/25 meat to fat ratio. Side pork is more lean this looked more like side pork.

Cured it for the recommended 3 days in pink-salt/sugar/pepper and smoked it for 6 hours. Kept the smoker down to 60 degrees. I could only do this in the winter here in Minnesota. Our weather is perfect for cold smoking, colder the better. The whole family really likes it, even the health conscience wife, in fact the other night at about 9:00 she said let's have bacon. She likes the mellow smoke. Next time I will take one out after 6 hours and leave the other in for 9. I like more smoke.

I just used my weber. I created a line of charcoal, like domino's and had applewood leaning up against the string. I do have a meat slicer which was pretty sweet but at first I just used a chef knife which is fine too.

This stuff is a lot cheaper than primo designer bacon. This is less than $5.00/lb. and it ain't all fat and sodium.
 
I'm not really a bacon fan but that sounds fantastic!

We used to lightly smoke Ling Cod and then pan fry it. Mmmmmm.
 
How do you keep a Weber down at 60? I live in central Wisconsin.

How do I keep a Weber down to 60 degrees. Well you are in Wisconsin and I am in Minnesota. To start with the ambient is about 10 degrees on a good day. Next- I have the 24" Weber. Next- I use a 1 briquet line, leaning up against each other like dominoes. Each one lights the next and produces very little heat and I keep the vents wide open. I put the hickory pieces on top of the charcoal every once in awhile. A string 18" of charcoal easily lasts 8-10 hrs.

I just found a new source for side pork- so much leaner than belly. I called several places who said pork belly and side pork were the same. How can they be in the business and not know the difference?
 
I just found a new source for side pork- so much leaner than belly. I called several places who said pork belly and side pork were the same. How can they be in the business and not know the difference?

They probably just want to sell you what they have on hand!

-Dave
 
I lay one down and then lean the next one at about 45 degrees against it. I do that for about 18" or so and it lasts for 8 hours or so. I wish I had just taken a picture the last time. I will next time...
 
Hmmm...never thought of such a low-temperature smoke for bacon, but that's a pretty neat idea. I could see snaking a row of "domino'ed" coals around the bottom of my 18" Weber smoker to do about the same. I have a temperature controller, but I don't know if it would maintain a temp that low. Hmmm...that has me thinking...I might have to experiment. (I was able to do a pork shoulder for 18½ hours on one load of Kingsford with apple wood chunks last week Thursday/Friday, and the temps topped out around 52° on Friday. The controller kept it at a perfect 225° the whole time, except for one stretch where I had to go get some of the ashes off the briquettes.)
 
About 18 lbs. of side pork will go in the smoker probably Friday night. it is curing now. I'll try to take pictures of the setup before the lid goes on. I think I am planning on just letting it smoke over-night because once the coals/smoke go out it doesn't really matter with the temps well below freezing.
 
I promised pictures so here they are. The sun is about to go down so I thought now is the time. It's about 20 degrees and a good breeze so the grill temp should stay low. I add a small grate at the bottom so any heat is is as far away as possible. I also add tin foil to the normal coal grate to disperse any direct heat. and then the slabs. This is side pork which is more lean than pork belly. The coals you see will burn for 8 hours at least. I don't care when they go out because nothing will spoil in this climate, I'll be sleeping when they do.
 

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Tme for bacon this weekend, I've been waiting for the temps to drop and they have. It's in the brine now. I plan to use pellets this time rather than any charcoal. I don't want the heat -just smoke. I made a pellet holder- I plan to light one end and let it do it's thang. If I remember I'll take some pics. Just doing 6-7 lbs. but it's real nice lean side pork. I bought about 20 lbs because it was so nice.
 
I discovered 95% of the apple pellets aren't apple- they are maybe 30% apple and the rest alder or oak or? So since I'm just buring them in a holder -I'm just going to sprinkle some real apple chips on the pellets. It'll at least make me feel better. Cure should be done tomorrow.
 
For another twist on bacon, I used to make what's known as Buckboard bacon.
There is a product you can buy online buy the same name.
It's a pkg that contains the brine ingredients and instructions.
Instead of using a pork belly, you you a boneless or deboned pork shoulder (butt roast)
It's cured in your fridge for about three weeks before being smoked.
I injected mine with maple syrup before smoking.

It makes for a very lean bacon, and the best damn BLT you'll ever have!
 
grill.jpg in grill.jpg jeep.jpg smoke pan.jpg stove.jpg

As you can see by the Jeep picture - the time was right, ice on the Jeep this morning. The un-smoked pork on the stove- shows how lean this is. The picture of the pellets in the pan shows how I'm doing this. That pan is the ash catcher for the weber but the pellets burn just fine intermixed with apple chips. I then just place 1 lit briquet on one end and it burns all the way around. My test yesterday indicates it would last for well over 12 hours. I then place the pan back under the weber and the smoke rises up thru and out the top. The temp is 40 outside now and the temp in the smoker has never been over 50. The temp when I started at 8:00am was 34. There is just a wisp of smoke coming thru which I'm happy with. When I did the test yesterday I had more pellets in the pan and it had heavy smoke and more heat was generated. I'd rather have low smoke for longer rather than heavy smoke for 2-3-4 hours so I backed off on the pellets today. It's 2:00pm now so it's been 6 hours. The smoke is so lite I'm not too worried about over smoking. I'll go at least 2 more hours.
 
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