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PICS - Made some bacon

FM Former Member
I was talking to my local butcher about 5 weeks ago and we were talking about making some maple smoked bacon. I said I had made some other bacons and wanted to try again. So he went in his cooler and brought out 2 beautiful slabs of side meat all ready to be cured and smoked. 18 lbs total. I took them right home and washed and patted dry. Then applied my Tenderquick and LOTS of dark brown sugar. These slabs were 20"x14" each. I folded them in half and added more dark brown sugar inside. Then double wrapped in heavy butchers plastic wrap. Put each one in a plastic bag and sealed that inside another plastic bag. (I have had this leak before) Put both slabs in the fridge for 30 days, turning every day. At the end of 30 days I rinsed each slab and let them sit in ice water for 2 hrs. Then dried them off and let air dry for a couple hours in the 008.





I filled the wood tray with 4 oz of maple in 2 chunks and a small tray of maple chips. I had the thickest slab on the bottom and put my temp probe in that one. I also rubbed each slab with just a little pure maple syrup.Closed the door and turned the heat to 150* and sat back. It smelled great cooking. The temp probe never went above 146. I let it go for 6 hours and turned it off and opened the door. All 4 slabs looked a dark redish brown and smelled delicious. Here are 2 of them.



I sliced up 2 of the slabs before I remembered to take the pictures. So here is one of the 2 remaining slabs and 1 slab sliced up.



Here is one of just a plate of bacon.



I started with 18 lbs of meat and ended up with 14. The aroma of the frying maple bacon filled the house the whole day after breakfast. The taste was just what I was looking for. A stronger smoke flavor than storebought but a sweet bacon. The only change I would make is to cook the thinner slabs 5-5.5 hours. One slab was just a little dry but still fried up fine. Everyone I have given a package to wants more. Big Grin

Bob
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FM Former Member
bob,
your bacon is an absolute work of art!!!!!!!
why not try to sell them to upscale resturants as i am sure they would love them!!!!!!!!!
tell your daughter to say the magic password at okeechobee "cadillac from cookshack" and her feeding, no cost of course, (and her friends) schedule will be chicken at 11.10am, ribs at 12.10pm, pork at 1.10pm and brisket at 2.10
it's the least peg and i could do after your kindness of telling us where to get one generator during our hurricane season and a kindness that never will be forgotten!!!!
jack and peggy percifield
wheelzwheelzSmmmmoooookin'!
Nice job Bob. I am truly impressed. These photo journals done by board members are inspirations to us all and encourage us to experiment more in the areas where we have absolutely no experience. Kinda prods us to go where we have never gone before. Thanks a bunch for sharing!!!

PS Personally, I don't care for the sweet bacon and have tried smoking once with maple - simply didn't like the sweet flavor imparted by the wood. How would one alter this process to successfully get a nice, mildly salty, hickory smoked bacon? Maybe that's a topic for another thread.
FM Former Member
Wheelz - This was my 4th attempt using side meat. The first time I used hickory wood it came out quite smokey. The second time I used corn cobs and while it tasted just like hickory, it was too strong. Thats when I switched to maple.

So to answer your question I would try cure with no brown sugar, shorter rinse/soak time,and a 5 -6 hr smoke using hickory. See if that fits your taste.

Bob
FM Former Member
Great job and thanks for the wonderful pictures.

I have used tenderquick on loin to make low fat Canadian style bacon. It ended up tasting like ham. Do you find your maple bacon has that hammy flavor or is a pork fat thing.

I am at this time cold smoking some sliced down the middle pork butt, cured with Morton smoked sugar cure, following their bacon recipe. I am smoking it with apple/alder chips. I think I will give it three cold smoke shots and let it age a couple more days until I give it a try.

For those looking for pork belly, or bacon sides or what ever you call it in your neck of the woods, try Asian supermarkets. They ususally carry it right in the meat cabinets. Also if you are looking for low fat beef etc, you might also check there. Many also carry ungraded meats that don't pass the normal meat fat requirements that chain supermarkets carry.

Thanks again for the post,

Jerry Cool
FM Former Member
I didnt detect any of the hammy taste at all. I have always wanted to try some of the Sugar cure and smoked sugar cure. Will be curious to hear your results. I would think that with the smoke sugar cure, I would "smoke" the meat without any wood and see what flavor I got. Then improve on that if needed.

Bob
FM Former Member
I found that my fresh side bacon tasted hammy when I first fried some straight out of the smoker. I let it sit a day or two chopped it for "pig candy" then fried it until it was good and crisp. Used the pig candy in my baked beans. It was awesome. Don't know whether resting the bacon after smoking or frying it until crisp made the difference but it worked for me.

I know that I followed the directions for the TQ but I used a lot of brown sugar and maple flavoring.

Mark
FM Former Member
Good afternoon folks. I havent been here for a very long time and thought Id stop by and see if I recognized any familiar faces. I still have both my Cookshack smokers.. the 008 and 009 in basic black. All my racks still work and my jerky hooks have been used for more food than I can shake a stick at. Ive hauled my Cookshacks to the East coast (from Iowa), to north and south of me and fed way too many folks to count. I use them to smoke cheese for wine events and feed firemen at county meetings and most everything in between. So thank you the folks at Cookshack for making such a durable long lasting trouble free smoker. Y'all are the best!!

bob

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