Bacon

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dataz722

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Ok, after making breakfast today I have come to the conclusion that I am tired of over priced tasteless grocery store bacon. I have tried all the bacons available around me and I am extremely unimpressed. I have decided I am going to make my own. Soooooooooo what does everyone know about cold smoking and bacon making? I dont have a smoker yet but I am going to be making the alton brown ceramic smoker and i am pretty sure I should be able to make this into a cold smoker. Now I just need tips/suggestions/ideas.s
 
Ok, after making breakfast today I have come to the conclusion that I am tired of over priced tasteless grocery store bacon. I have tried all the bacons available around me and I am extremely unimpressed. I have decided I am going to make my own. Soooooooooo what does everyone know about cold smoking and bacon making? I dont have a smoker yet but I am going to be making the alton brown ceramic smoker and i am pretty sure I should be able to make this into a cold smoker. Now I just need tips/suggestions/ideas.s
I make my own bacon fairly regularly. It is spectacular and spectacularly easy. First, though, get a copy of Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. It is the bible. You will find yourself not only making bacon but breakfast sausage, salamis, cured hams and the incredible chicken-tomato-basil sausage.

You can get away with curing with just salt if you are a no-nitrate or nitrite kinda guy (and you don't smoke the bacon), but I'm more comfortable with the added safety of including pink salt in the cure. Pink salt, aka Prague Powder or Cure #1, is salt with 6.25% sodium nitrite. It not only acts as a preservative but it also keeps the meat safe from bacterial growth (particularly botulinum) during the cold smoking process. If you use pink salt you can also get away with using much less salt overall, so you don't have to blanch or soak the bacon before use.

I cold smoke my bacon in a Weber Smokey Mountain and fill the water bath with ice, which cools the smoke on the way up to the grill racks. It's not ideal, but it works quite well, giving me a three hour smoking time before the meat reaches an internal temperature of 150°. I smoke with apple wood, a much milder smoke flavor than hickory.

The cure is 2oz kosher salt, 2tsp pink salt and 1Tbsp cracked black peppercorns. You can add 1/2 cup of maple syrup if you like that kind of bacon. Dextrose also works well. It is less sweet and is easier to use in the cure. Rub the belly liberally with the cure and place in a large Ziplock bag. I can find the 2 gallon size fairly easily. Refrigerate for 7-10 days, flipping the bag to redistribute the cure every other day.

After 7 days check for firmness. It should feel firm at the thickest point. If it is still squishy, return to the fridge for another couple of days. The thicker the belly, the longer it will take to cure.

Chad
 
I'm not saying that you shouldn't make your own bacon, it actually sounds easy and a lot of fun, but have you tried a butcher? My in-laws raise a couple of pigs each year and we always get a half, the butcher we use makes awesome bacon. I made breakfast for my office a couple of weeks ago and everyone was raving about the bacon and wanted to know where I bought it from. I got to think that any decent butcher would have good bacon the stuff in the supermarket sucks, always too thin, flavorless, and has a very high fat to meat ratio.
 
Ok, I will defiantly look into that book. I have been wanting to get into smoking and sausage making for a while now.

Tell me if you think this is going to even work or not. I am going to take a pretty big ceramic pot put a hot plate and wood chips in there to make the smoke. Then have some duct work to take that smoke to another container that will have the pork belly. If need be I could run that duct through some ice to cool it off even more in the summer.

Also, what is too cold for cold smoking. From what I have read it just says under 70 or 80 degrees but since this time of year it is usually 25-40 outside I dont know if that will be too cold.
 
I'm not saying that you shouldn't make your own bacon, it actually sounds easy and a lot of fun, but have you tried a butcher? My in-laws raise a couple of pigs each year and we always get a half, the butcher we use makes awesome bacon. I made breakfast for my office a couple of weeks ago and everyone was raving about the bacon and wanted to know where I bought it from. I got to think that any decent butcher would have good bacon the stuff in the supermarket sucks, always too thin, flavorless, and has a very high fat to meat ratio.

There are 3 butchers around here and two of them dont make their own and I dont know about the other but I refuse to go back there because ive had a problem. I know there are some places online that have really good bacon but im not paying 15+ dollars a pound for it.
 
Tell me if you think this is going to even work or not. I am going to take a pretty big ceramic pot put a hot plate and wood chips in there to make the smoke. Then have some duct work to take that smoke to another container that will have the pork belly. If need be I could run that duct through some ice to cool it off even more in the summer.

That should work quite nicely. I'm familiar with Alton's setup, and the only problem I can see is ensuring that it is capable of holding up a side of bacon. Make sure the cardboard box can hold five to seven pounds of pork belly. The cold smoker was originally featured in the salmon show, if I recall. A 5lb slab o' pork belly weighs a lot more than a couple of slim salmon fillets. But if you've got the structural integrity to hold a belly or two, go for it. That is real cold smoking, as opposed to what I do, which is more properly termed smoke roasting. My smoking routine on the Weber Smokey Mountain lasts about three hours. I pull the bacon when it reaches an internal temp. of 150°. True cold smoking can last much longer and the bacon won't heat up, making the use of pink salt all the more critical. You are holding it in the danger zone (40° - 140°) in an anaerobic environment -- perfect growth conditions for Clostridium botulinum.

Chad
 
Yea, I am going to be using the pink salt. Any idea how much pork belly should cost me?
 
Yea, I am going to be using the pink salt. Any idea how much pork belly should cost me?

Niman Ranch is running a winter special on bellies for $34.98. I recently paid about $60 for two 5-6lb bellies from Cane Creek Farms, but those are pasture raised, heirloom breed Ossabaw Island hogs. I figure that if I'm going to go to the trouble to make my own bacon, it is going to be from the best pork possible. Bellies from an Asian market (they seem to keep them in stock) or ordered through your local grocery store will be much cheaper.

You could also try Local Harvest or EatWild.com to find a small farm near you that raises and sells pork.

Chad
 
I pay $1.89 lb for fresh sides from a local butcher. Usually between 7-9 lbs each. I cure mine for 7 days and then smoke it on Applewood for about 4 hours. These are pictures of the very 1st test batch I made.

FRESHSIDE.jpg

1STCURE.jpg

smoke3.jpg

slicedslab.jpg


I sell it for $6lb and have done about 450lbs since I started last year.
 
Last week I cured a pork belly, and tried my first bacon and egg sandwich from it today (the cure technique was from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's amazing " The River Cottage Meat Book ", which is up there with " Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing " as my favorite food-porn book). The bacon was great - it didn't shrink at all during cooking, and tasted so unhealthy it was great! I just used cheap-ass pork belly from a local supermarket, but next time I'm going to get the meat from a farm shop and see how bacony I can get.

I need to get me a smoker.
 
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Mine would be considered hot smoked...it still needs to be cooked and I handle it as a raw product as far as keeping it in temp ranges after its been smoked.
 
NewBlood,

I hope that I am not asking for any of your trade secrets, but would you mind sharing your recipe and smoking technique for the first timer? I have an el cheapo brinkman charcoal smoker now, but don't really care for it and would like to upgrade to perhaps what you have?
 
Finally got round to uploading food pictures. Here's the home cured bacon.

3300136212_2d4303b101_o.jpg


And here's some home-cured duck prosciutto, from the Charcuterie book. I cannot recommend that book highly enough.

3300137686_d59d38f391_o.jpg
 
Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing by Rytek Kutas is also an excellent book. I use his kielbasa recipe every year to make sauage for Easter and Christmas. My dad knew Rytek. I now live in Utah and kielbasa and other sausages are impossible to find here (except for that Hillshire Farm's crap).
 
You could always try to make to make cottage bacon, its made from the pork shoulder. Makes a great lean meaty bacon.

also, check here for some great info on smoking, and search around for threads on bacon making.

The Smoke Ring :: Index
 
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