I made bacon. It was good.

nolaegghead

Costco had pig belly for $2.29/lb.  Bought one around 11 pounds.  I was pleasantly surprised the skin was removed.

Cured 7 days.  Soaked on ice water to lower salinity for 6 hours.  Cold smoked for 2 hours and hot smoked for another two.  Cherry and apple wood.  Coconut sugar and pepper rub.

Refrigerated overnight to firm it up.  Hand cut.  Cooked some up and it's better than anything I've ever bought. 

nolaegghead

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nolaegghead

Cut in half to fit.

nolaegghead

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nolaegghead

For dinner, cooked some up to season the beans.  Delicious.   Gave half of it away.  Building up the karma.

nolaegghead

nolaegghead

blasting

@nolaegghead  that looks pretty darn spectacular.  That bacon would ruin a guy for store bought, I'm sure.

Toxarch

That sure looks really good. I need to try that sometime.
After a 2hr cold smoke and a 2hr hot smoke, I would think there would be a pretty thick smoke ring on it.

nolaegghead

No smoke ring because it's one total smoke ring (100% smoke ring) from the nitrite in the curing process, which has permeated the meat to the center after 7 days.  The nitrite reacts to form nitrous oxide and that reacts with the myoglobin and makes it pink.  All the way through.

nolaegghead

Random picture from shop.

blind99

Spectacular bacon! Hand cut, wow -- who needs a meat slicer when you can do that?? Very nice work. 

MrCookingNurse

That looks killer

Hotch

@nolaegghead Nicely done sir.

Legume

man that looks good!

SGH

Looking real good brother. Nothing better than some good ole bacon.  

Ladeback69

That's looks tasty.   I would like to try this some time.

B&BKnox

I just put a 9.4 lb pork belly, also from Costco into it's liquid cure yesterday.  I can't wait.  Yours looks wonderful.

Little Steven

Curious, what was the ambient temp when you were cold smoking?

Thatgrimguy

That looks amazing. Those cutting skills are something else!

nolaegghead

Little Steven said:

Curious, what was the ambient temp when you were cold smoking?

@Little Steven

About 85F.  It was around 150F (lower range of the thermometer, hard to tell) in the egg for 2 hours.  I was going to finish in the oven but eventually the lump below the maze smoker lit and I just let it go to 300F and cooked the meat until it was 155F.

I have a refrigerated cold smoker but I need a firebox for it and didn't feel like rigging up the hose.

Nanook

Nice!

cook861

Great looking bacon