Hernlem
Well-known member
I've cured other meats before but never tried making bacon ... until now. I started with a few pounds of fresh pork belly and added curing salt, kosher salt and brown sugar to 156 ppm nitrite, 2.5% salt and 2% sugar by weight and vacuum sealed the meat with the additives. Meat was cured for a week in the refrigerator and then rinse and set on a rack in the fridge overnight to dry. The next day I smoked the cured pork belly in my UDS, monitoring the internal temperature. After 5 hours of smoking, the internal temps were only a bit over 140F in the thickest parts although my probe and dial thermometers were showing drum temps up to 210F (most of the smoke was a slow climb to that level). I finished the bacon to 154F in the oven (sun was going down).
Charcoal was mix of partially burned lump and briquettes and oak wine barrel stave pieces with fresh Kingsford apple wood briquettes and hickory chunks. I also put a smoke tube filled with hickory pellets in the drum but that went out early on. This was only my second time using the smoke tube. The first time was with all intakes on the drum wide open. Temp in that case peaked at 2.5 hours at 135F. Evidently it doesn't like the well damped conditions that I use to control the burn rate of the charcoal basket.
Charcoal was mix of partially burned lump and briquettes and oak wine barrel stave pieces with fresh Kingsford apple wood briquettes and hickory chunks. I also put a smoke tube filled with hickory pellets in the drum but that went out early on. This was only my second time using the smoke tube. The first time was with all intakes on the drum wide open. Temp in that case peaked at 2.5 hours at 135F. Evidently it doesn't like the well damped conditions that I use to control the burn rate of the charcoal basket.