Homemade Bacon cold smoked.

[Johnpv]

I'm making some more homemade bacon, and this weekend is the time to cold smoke it.  Thought I would share some pictures of the process.

This is the first day after I've covered it in the cure (sugar, and salt)



This is after 7 days of curing, washed off and then left in the fridge for 24 hours to form a pellicle.  (you can see a tiny bit of the skin I missed which I'll have to get before slicing it)



Into my cold smoke set up. 



In about 6 hours I'll pull it out of the smoke, throw it in the freezer to harden up and then slice it.

Here's a picture showing how much moisture was in the bottom of the pan this morning.



I'll update the thread after I slice it with some after smoked pictures and some sliced pics.

[Ken Mc]

making bacon myself today. On the WSM now. Holding steady at 106 degrees. First time for me. Hopefully it will turn out.

[Hogsy]

Just had bacon and eggs for breakfast with my first batch of bacon

I used some chunks of Blackbutt to smoke it in the WSM after it had been in a dry maple cure for 8 days ,had my butcher slice it for me and..... It was outstanding !!!
I'm interested in cold smoking, is there any difference in the finished product?
Cold smoking is something we can only do for a couple months of the year over here due to the climate

[Johnpv]

Hogsy, what cut of the pig did you use for that?  Very interesting looking.  I use one of the amaze-n-smokers sawdust jobs to cold smoke, and the big difference is one cooks the meat and the other doesn't.  So after I've cold smoked the bacon it's still raw and needs to be cooked before eating.  I find even in the summer months here (when we do have 100 degree days) that as long as I can keep the smoker in the shade, it doesn't get above 90 or so in the smoker.  If I remember right as long as it's under 100 degrees it's still cold smoking.  Basically you don't want the fat to start rendering out.

[Hogsy]

Hey John, the cut is the belly with the loin,
It probably looks a little weird but the cut was just over a foot long and the meat slicer only 9 inches
So it was sliced across the grain( I think)
Did I mention how good it was??? Coz it was amazing!!!

[Johnpv]

Ahhh that would explain why it looks different.  In the US they usually don't sell it with the loin still attached either. 

Here's how mine came out

After 6 hours in cold smoke



And this was from last night after we sliced it.



Came out pretty damn good.  I think I still need to make a few tweaks to the recipe.

[Hogsy]

That looks great John, what type of wood did you use?

[Johnpv]

Thanks, it was a mix of cherry, maple, and hickory.

[DirectDrive]

Beautiful job on that bacon, John !
Very smart use of that Amazen product....5x8 ?

It's great to see discussion on cold-smoking.
We have many arguments out here on how best to smoke salmon.
Many, many novices are actually cooking and not smoking the fish.