Results of My First Ever Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf
Here's the results. First pic here is after I poked holes in the aluminum to drain the bacon fat and carried into the house in an All-Clad roaster. The bits of meatloaf that sat in the fat were awesome. Nothing like smoke and rub to turn a (ground turkey) meatloaf into something memorable.
Note the lack of a smoke ring. The bacon received all the smoke on this. But the bacon did add flavor to the meatloaf. The funny thing is that this was some old Costco bacon that was past its prime just sitting in the freezer. But the rub and smoke more than made it tasty again.
I smoked this ground turkey meatloaf for about 90 minutes at 290 degrees with water in the pan and using 4 or 5 small black cherry wood chunks and regular Kingsford charcoal. We did not let the meatloaf rest. It was hacked up immediately and wolfed down with no side dishes. I couldn't wait to cook anything else. I was actually shocked that it would be ready so fast.
Props to Ina Garten of Food Network for the recipe that Amy hacked and props to Amy for trusting the flavor profile I gave it/changed by adding bacon and rub.
While I pulled this out of the smoker late (187 degrees internal temp), the meat was overdone, but was still quite moist. Either the bacon or the bacon fat or the fact that Amy put too much broth in the raw meat were the things that saved it. Anyways, it was really good. If anything, every other bite had bacon in it, so I couldn't go wrong with that.
