It's Bacon!!!
Well, this has dragged on long enough that I'm going to have to enter. I didn't think it would still be open. My first time working with a pork belly, and first time making bacon.
First up, my pork belly. This is a 11.5# pork belly.
And of course the nipples that so grossed out my wife and everyone else she told:
Here it is carved up into four pieces. The big piece was regular bacon, the next piece was pepper bacon, the third was just smoked without curing, and the rest went into sausage I made later in the week.
Into the cure:
After that, it was place in a ziplock bag. Note to anyone who wants to play along, be very careful not to get salt on the zipper when putting the bacon into the bag or you'll never get them to seal. After 6 days, the belly was firm and looked like this:
I got a new toy just in time to make the bacon. Hiding under the box is an Pitmaster iQue110. It was spiting rain all day, so the iQue went in a cake pan under the box.
Smoker set to 180*. The iQue did it's job beautifully.
No pics uploaded of the bacon after it came off the smoker, because running the smoker so low in temp didn't get the lid hot enough to evaporate the steam, and I had ugly black splotches on my bacon. :doh:
Refrigerate, slice up and into the pan:
Dang!
And on to waiting toast for a nice BLT:
(Chris, please use the second frying plan photo for my entry. Thanks.)