Home-Smoked Bacon Part II
January 31st, 2016 · No Comments · Posted in Recipes
My wife never liked the bacon we got from our local butcher. Too bland. So we started smoking at home the pork belly we buy from our friend Mike, who raises heritage breeds a few miles from us. Still, my wife thought there was something missing and with the next batch of belly she embarked on a major project called Black Forest Bacon.
I say “major project” because this bacon required a complicated rub of spices and salt and a curing time that took weeks. Then the pork was cleaned, rubbed with maple sugar and left to dry (in plastic bags) for more weeks in the basement fridge.
At this point, the slabs are meant to be “cold smoked,” meaning hung in a container where they are exposed to smoke but not the heat source that makes the smoke. Since the only smoker we have is our little Brinkmann model with the electric heating element, she smoked the pork in there reasoning that in the winter, being pretty cold but not freezing outside, the temperature inside the smoker wouldn’t get too high, while there’d still be plenty of smoke.
I think she was right. She used apple wood chips, placing these around the electric element at the bottom of the smoker, and they produced plenty of aromatic smoke. A few hours later and you can see the results. The bacon was smoked through and with a beautiful mahogany sheen.
We immediately tossed a couple of slices in a hot iron skillet and I was blown away by the flavors of nutmeg, mace and cardamom in the original rub. But my wife still isn’t satisfied. She thinks it’s too salty.
Fortunately, there’s plenty more locally-raised pork belly where that came from. We’ll keep trying. It’s hardly possible to get tired of eating bacon.
Note: If you want to try this yourself, here’s a link to the recipe my wife used.
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