I went to Val's Distributing in Tulsa and picked up some Pork Bellies and decided to take the plunge.
I used Morton's Sugar Cure along with pure Maple Syrup and some cracked black pepper.
cut the bellies into 4 sections. Then I rubbed the bellies per Mortons directions slathered with maple syrup added some pepper and placed in individual ziplock bags and put in the refridgerator for 8 days and turned them once daily.
After 8 days (I felt after 7 they weren't firm enough for me and wanted to smoke them a couple of days afterward anyway), I rinsed in cold water for about 30 minutes, changed the water rinsed for another 15 minutes and pulled one out of water ant cut a couple of slices to test fry for salt content.
Test fry was good so I pulled from rinse and patted them dry and placed on cooling racks and put in fridge for another day to form some pellicile that would help hold the smoke. (I've been shigging the smoked meat forums
)I bought a thing called the Amaze-N-Smoker that is a little tray that has a zig-zag divider in it and you fill with pellets and it creates a light smoke for about 10 hours without generating a lot of heat.
I cold smoked the bacon overnight in my FEC using it only as a box and not as a heat source.
It worked great. At one point I thought the pellets were going out so I simply turned on the switch of the FEC which turned on the fan for about two minutes and the smoke once began to roll out of the pipe.
In the picture set you will see the cool temps of the racks from my maverick thermometer I had been using.
FEC as a Smokehouse
A pictured before Slicing
This link is to the whole set of Pictures
Makin' Bacon
As a Post Script. I cooked another run and added a small single burner ($20 from Kmart) on the bottom next to the fire pot of the FEC to keep the box temp around 90 degrees as it was 20 degrees last night and it worked great!