Makin' Bacon!

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It's on the smoker and doing it's thing.
I ran into a small mechanical difficulty early on. I thought 1/4 chimney of lit charcoal would get me hovering around 180F. It didn't. It stalled at 156 and barely ignited my chips. Another 1/4 chimney and we're cruising along at 200F right now with the WSM throttled back some. Close to my target temp of 180...
The slab was 36F when it went on and is 90 right now. More than halfway home, but I don't want it done too quickly. Not before it can suck up a lot of smoke and hopefully not shrink much by cooking slower.


YUMMMMMMMM !!!!

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That one might be tough for the butcher to get.
Nobody actually butchers their own meat from carcasses up here anymore... unless you are buying an animal from a farm.
Up here even the butcher shops buy the cuts already broken down and take it from there.

I used to live about five doors from my butcher. So every day I would see the big 18 wheelers pull up to his back door and unload cattle, hog and other animal carcases. And I mean the kind of a half of an animal cut right down the middle. You sometimes have to wait for them to cut what you wanted from the carcass. It is a small shop but he does business like a land office. :angel:
 
If y'all will excuse me... I need to have a moment.
 

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I'm sensing another challenge... :ermm:
Pacanis' Personal Pig Challenge - Makin' Bacon in every country :LOL:
Maybe take a detour around the Middle East... ;)

If I recall Kylie posted some bacon that looked just like that British bacon from her trip. I think I asked her what kind of meat it was. It looked delicious all cooked up.

;) :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: :angel:
 
oh boy oh boy oh boy.

it's almost bacon time.

peanut butter bacon time
peanut butter bacon time

peanut butter bacon, peanut butter bacon
peanut butter bacon and a baseball bat.

now they ya go, they ya go, they ya go, they ya go
now whey ya at, whey ya at, whey ya at, whey ya at

peanut butter bacon time...
 
The house smells like BACON!

Well, it sure tastes like bacon!
It looks like bacon, it smells like bacon and it tastes like bacon, so... it must be bacon.

So far so good. I fried up three pieces and made a bacon and mayo sandwich and dang, if I didn't impress myself. It had a real nice taste and texture.
It's certainly fatty and yielded a lot of grease, so I'll have to get to know my way around a pork belly for next time. See which section my butcher is giving me if I only take 4 lbs. And it's not the most uniform. I like uniform bacon for weaving. Although some of that could have been fixed by timming the slab. The real test though will be wrapping it up, storing it, freezing some... seeing how it holds up. Initial thoughts are I wouldn't change a thing. I took half a dozen pieces over to my buddy next door for a second opinion. And I think I may be cooking some later, too :)

So I started with 4.18 lbs and finished with a solid 2.875 lbs of strip bacon. I've got a few miscellaneous pieces and small chunks left over for some beans or something.
 

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holy giacamole, thst loooks great!!! nice job.

pac, if yoi're going to tour the cured pork world, spend a lot of time in eastern europe.

the polish delis near me sell more types of ham-like cured cuts of pork than i've ever seen. (lol, that's sort of a berra-ism. but you know what i mean.)

they even sell cured pure fat to be eaten straight up, not rendered.
 
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We need more pictures.

I nominate pacanis as the Official Bacon Provider of Discuss Cooking...

...following a taste test and approval by the DC tasting panel headed by me.
 
Looks fantastic!

Just in time to buy a couple of piglets and get them fattened up by this fall !!! :ermm::ohmy::LOL:

Actually, I recently started receiving a farm magazine and was just reading last week about how to rotate plots for grazing pigs :wacko:
I think I'll stick to buying my pork ;)

And thanks guys. It's been fun having you all join in :)
 
Yay!!! Great job, Pac!!! All the harassment obviously added some of that je ne sais quois...
 
Thanks PF.

Here is your more pics, Andy. At least the ones I thought you were looking for, what a strip actually looks like.
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I think the reason it gets such a nice caramelization when it's cooking is because of the sugar in the cure. It has a sweetness to it. It reminds me of when I used to sprinkle a little sugar on bacon as I was cooking it years ago. Nice flavor, but next time I'll use less sugar.

It also shrinks quite a bit. The butcher that gave me a few tips leaned me towards tips on how to avoid shrinkage as it was cooking... Obviously that is what he would be more interested in. He's selling the stuff and wants it to look big. The next time I smoke it I'll go with a little higher temp to shrink it more while it's cooking. I would rather it not change in size so much while it's cooking a second time. Especially if it is wrapped around a shrimp.

So now I have about 2.625 lbs to burn through to try out my tweaks :pig:
 
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