Bacon Redux

So Sunday the pork belly went on the smoker. Many of the recipes I've seen call for running a cool smoker for bacon, around 160 F. At its peak I think mine was at 200 and by the time I took the bacon off it was running around 125 F. For fuel I used several pieces of apple wood and one chimney of charcoal. Instead of my usual fire basket, which is usually elevated a bit to let the ash fall, I had the fuel in an old aluminum roasting pan at the very bottom of the smoker and the pork belly was up on the top rack, putting it as far from the heat as possible. I left it on the smoker for about 3 1/2 hours.

After removing the bacon from the smoker, you will be tempted to cut into the bacon, fry some up and taste it. Go ahead. But then put it on a rack and let it cool. After cooling for an hour or two, put it in a plastic bag and set it in the fridge for a few hours. This really helps set the meat up and makes it much much easier to cut.

You may notice that the bacon above doesn't have that deep read or mahogany color you are used to seeing in bacon you get from the store. The main cause of that is that I did not use any nitrites or nitrates at all in curing the bacon. You can use any of a number of curing salts that contain those ingredients to get that color if you so desire. I won't comment on whether or not they cause cancer, because I'm too damn lazy to do the research.

So now I have roughly ten pounds of bacon. Five of it has been cut up. The other five is still whole. All of it is going to our family Thanksgiving gathering. I'm sure we'll figure out what to do with it.

Also, the rendered pork fat came out great. After it was done rendering I drained it then let it sit in the fridge. Some was used for cooking eggs over the past couple of days, and then I felt like making biscuits, so the rest of it went into the biscuits in the place of the margarine or shortening most recipes call for. It was a good move.

Bringing Home The Bacon

I am taking my first step at home smoked bacon. A 10.78 pound pork belly is in the fridge, curing. In the fridge Wednesday evening, on the smoker Sunday afternoon. I cut the belly in half and trimmed off a good amount of the rind and fat.

The cure is 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup kosher salt and a few turns on the pepper grinder. I mixed this by hand, covered the pork belly generously, put it into a storage zip bag and it's in the fridge.

The amount of fat I had left from trimming was a lot, so I am rendering it on the stove top in a sauce pan. About 1/4 cup of water went over the fat after putting it in the pan. It is on low heat. I'll let you all know how it comes out.