Homemade Pork Belly & a tale of two firsts

[RedKamado]

Every so often I enjoy to make my own bacon. I've taken a costco's slab of belly and cured it for 12 days. Today is smoke day.

This is my first attempt at a cold smoke. I want to keep the smoke under 80f. Being cured, the belly should be food safe at these temps.

First stab at this method. In the Shirley Fabrication custom I simply made a charcoal snake, added pecan and cherry chips on top, and fired up one end. So far I am pleasantly surprised as it is working seemingly well.

Another first. I took advantage of a sale and purchased a thermoworks tool that pushes temp data to the cloud. Its been fun watching my temps on a bar graph. Smoke chamber temps seem to be flirting around 50f.

If anyone cares to check in live here is the link:
https://cloud.thermoworks.com/shared/QqLB9PvQkBrkrvwVeabT

 

[creek bottom]

Well that's pretty cool!

 

[Big George's BBQ]

Looking good

 

[akoda]

Do you have the draft open between champers? I have to do some soon and I have ran very small fires for hours, curious to see how long that snake will run

Looks good

Sent from my SM-P610 using Tapatalk

 

[thirdeye]

I'm sure a pit that nice has excellent draw and draft. One of these pellet smoke generators might be an option later on. They essentially produce very little heat and run for about 6 or 7 hours.

 

[RedKamado]

Do you have the draft open between champers? I have to do some soon and I have ran very small fires for hours, curious to see how long that snake will run

I did have the draft open between main and warmer chamber. Was thinking, that way I could get smoke flow both under and over the meat sitting on the top shelf in the main chamber.
I was satisfied with the snake method. Once it burned down half way, I went in and extended the "tail" making it full length again. Didnt have an issue with burn duration.

I'm sure a pit that nice has excellent draw and draft. One of these pellet smoke generators might be an option later on. They essentially produce very little heat and run for about 6 or 7 hours.

That is a great tip! I did consider a pellet smoke generator, but first figured I try with what I have on hand. I will definitely look to get one along with some pellets to experiment with.

 

[RedKamado]

Side note, im just realizing that I accidentally doubly created threads on this cook. My apologies for the redundancy and inconvenience.