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.
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.