LBBG's bacon

[perchking]

So yesterday while it was a balmy -20 here in N Wisconsin and after a fairly long night of being over-served at a company partly I thought it would be a great time to cook up some bacon and  eggs.  Remind you, this is the bacon LBBG sent me for a prize a week or so ago.  This bacon was fantastic, I guess now I have to ask politely for the recipe.

 

So, is there a chance I can get a better understanding of how you make this LBBG?

 

Thanks again.

[lovebigbluegills]

I'm glad you liked it PK!!! The recipe is pretty darn simple.

Upon Reinhard's recommendation, I whipped up another batch of Pop's Brine in my 5-gallon bucket that I use for brining (the recipe for that is on his web page sausageheavenoutdoors and click on the smokin hot tab. Scroll down past the fish a bit, and if you start seeing pictures of canadian bacon you went just a bit too far). I think I doubled the brine recipe so all the pieces of belly were covered. I did my best to make sure the pieces were seperated so that the brine could work its magic on every square inch of meat, then filled a gallon ziploc bag about half full and put on top to make sure all of the meat stayed submerged. I put the bucket in my garage fridge for 8 days, stirring the brine good every couple days to make sure nothing settled out. After the 8 days I took the meat out of the brine and rinsed it real well, patted dry with a paper towel, then sliced off a little to fry up and sample to make sure it wasnt too salty. If too salty, just soak in cold water for an hour or so and test fry again. I then put it back in the fridge uncovered overnight to dry (I used a cooling rack to put them on so the air was hitting all sides). The next day, I cold smoked everything for about 6-7 hours with hickory and apple. After I pulled it out of the smoker I put all the pieces into a tote and back into the fridge for 24 hours prior to slicing.

The next time I make bacon, I think during the smoking part I'll pull of a chunk at 6 hours, one at 7, etc, for varying degrees of smokiness (I like it smokier than the wife, and son in law likes it smokier than I do).

Pop's Brine is what I used for the canadian bacon also (there are at least two topics in the first couple three pages that have the length of brine time, pictures, etc. One is '9-10 days to go' and another is canadian bacon).

Hopefully the Honorable Mr Reinhard sees this, as I'm sure he'll have a few other tips and tricks that I may have left out.

ENJOY!!!

[perchking]

Thank you Sir...

[smurfy]

31 minutes ago, lovebigbluegills said:

I'm glad you liked it PK!!! The recipe is pretty darn simple.

Upon Reinhard's recommendation, I whipped up another batch of Pop's Brine in my 5-gallon bucket that I use for brining (the recipe for that is on his web page sausageheavenoutdoors and click on the smokin hot tab. Scroll down past the fish a bit, and if you start seeing pictures of canadian bacon you went just a bit too far). I think I doubled the brine recipe so all the pieces of belly were covered. I did my best to make sure the pieces were seperated so that the brine could work its magic on every square inch of meat, then filled a gallon ziploc bag about half full and put on top to make sure all of the meat stayed submerged. I put the bucket in my garage fridge for 8 days, stirring the brine good every couple days to make sure nothing settled out. After the 8 days I took the meat out of the brine and rinsed it real well, patted dry with a paper towel, then sliced off a little to fry up and sample to make sure it wasnt too salty. If too salty, just soak in cold water for an hour or so and test fry again. I then put it back in the fridge uncovered overnight to dry (I used a cooling rack to put them on so the air was hitting all sides). The next day, I cold smoked everything for about 6-7 hours with hickory and apple. After I pulled it out of the smoker I put all the pieces into a tote and back into the fridge for 24 hours prior to slicing.

The next time I make bacon, I think during the smoking part I'll pull of a chunk at 6 hours, one at 7, etc, for varying degrees of smokiness (I like it smokier than the wife, and son in law likes it smokier than I do).

Pop's Brine is what I used for the canadian bacon also (there are at least two topics in the first couple three pages that have the length of brine time, pictures, etc. One is '9-10 days to go' and another is canadian bacon).

Hopefully the Honorable Mr Reinhard sees this, as I'm sure he'll have a few other tips and tricks that I may have left out.

ENJOY!!!

sheez.............with all that sampling no wonder ya gotta double the batch!!!!!!!!!!

[lovebigbluegills]

3 hours ago, smurfy said:

sheez.............with all that sampling no wonder ya gotta double the batch!!!!!!!!!!

I just doubled the batch of brine...silly smurf...not the meat!!! 

Which brings up a thought I had this morning...man this fridge seems empty without the brine bucket in here!!! 

Since Christmas  has passed, I can actually kee some in the freezer!

Edited January 18, 2016 by lovebigbluegills

[smurfy]

11 minutes ago, lovebigbluegills said:

I just doubled the batch of brine...silly smurf...not the meat!!! 

Which brings up a thought I had this morning...man this fridge seems empty without the brine bucket in here!!! 

Since Christmas  has passed, I can actually kee some in the freezer!

put more beer in the frig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lovebigbluegills]

 There's always room for beer in the fridge buddy!!!