I Tried A Smoke Signals Recipe
 

So I was flipping through this month's issue and saw the bacon wrapped shrimp and wanted to give it a go. I'm not a big seafood guy, but I do eat shrimp on occasion, so I figured bacon and shrimp would be great ... WRONG.

Almost everything that could have went wrong did ... I don't know what it is, but I just can't seem to get bacon to crisp up when I try to cook things on the grill ... any help?

Here's the whole cook if you want to check it out and tell me where I screwed up ... I'm sure there's a lot of places :tsk:

http://onenine3bbq.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-oh-crap-bacon-wrapped-grilled-shrimp.html

Before they went on the grill ... looking nice

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eFG8K8HeII...0/P1020023.JPG

Even tried the indirect heat it called for.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vfx4ZCmI0V...0/P1020024.JPG

I ended up having to turn the heat up a bit to get them to cook ... and it was still just a mush of bacon fat. Half of the toothpicks fell out ... it was just a mess.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YK00PTOdel...0/P1020027.JPG

I couldn't even get a good looking pic for the finishing touch.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqNGRRivIT...0/P1020030.JPG

I don't know what happened, but mine do NOT look like the shrimp in the magazine ... :tsk:

I'm not sure what would have gone wrong. Did you use thin bacon? I find it works better for me than the thick stuff.

I can't remember, but I think we used regular bacon ... definitely not thick cut though.

It looks like you didn't pre-cook the bacon enough. Shrimp do not take long to cook so you almost need to cook the bacon all the way. I usually pull the bacon right before it starts getting crispy. Over a hot fire, shrimp might only take a couple minutes. Any more than that it can get tuff.
It does take practice as different size shrimp take different times to finish.
When I grill bacon wrapped shrimp, I grill over direct heat, 350 or so. I base with BBQ sauce during the last 30-45 sec of grill time.
Thin bacon works best for this.

I found a thing that talked about doing bacon in the oven and it said to do it at whatever temp for 17-20 minutes so I went 15 and thought the extra few minutes on the grill would crisp it up

OK. Pre cooked. That makes it even more curious now...

:shock::twitch: there is such a thing as too much Bacon:confused: :faint2:

With the small photos it's hard to tell but the first photo doesn't look like the bacon is cooked enough to me. Cookin' bacon in the oven is my favorite way to do it indoors but the cook temp and technique used can really make for time variation. I like my breakfast bacon a little on the chewy side instead of crisp so I lay out the bacon, put in the oven and then turn the oven on and set it to 375°. This technique will give you the widest window of opportunity to get the bacon out alive my favored way, however if you would put the bacon in a preheated 425° oven it will take a lot less time than my method as will the thickness of the bacon but the window of opportunity is narrow. You'll need to practice with it a little bit I think.

That was what I did. I put it in and turned the oven on to (375 I think) and it said it'd take it 17-20 minutes ... maybe next time I let it preheat a little before I throw it in and try it that way.

Sounds like a Bacon experiment :becky:

+1 on thin bacon, you may want to freeze the shrimp so they will not cook up so quick and give the bacon a chance to crisp.
Dave

One trick I learned is to skewer several of those things rather than use individual toothpicks. It makes handling them a lot easier.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...SC_6088-PP.JPG

I haven't done shrimp, but I do bacon wrapped scallops. I partially freeze the scallops beforehand and grill medium-hot, that way by the time the scallops thaw and get cooked just right, the bacon has had enough heat and time to render off some fat and get nice and crisp. Works every time.

I'm with pre-cooking the bacon.

I'll have to try the scewers next time

I did (try to) precook the bacon

I'll add my two cents. Eddie is right, shrimp cook quick on a hot barbie. Y'all may call it heresy, but I put a double paper towel on a plate and lay four pieces of regular thin hardwood smoked oscar myer bacon on it. Then I put down another paper towel, and lay four more pieces at an angle to the others. I keep on layering the bacon that way. Then, I pop it in the microwave - can't remember how long, five to eight minutes or so. Pretty well along on cooking it up, but not finished or crispy yet.

Then I roll my preseasoned shrimp in the precooked bacon slices a few on a skewer at a time then cook 'em.

Come out pretty good every time - YMMV.

Trey in Houston