Make Your Own Bacon

This week we have a submission from one of our Tappecue team's family. Don is a long time BBQ'er who lives in Mississippi. He has be grilling and smoking meat for 40+ years. Since getting his Tappecue, his cooking and smoking sessions have reached a new level of consistency and quality! Don wrote in telling us about a new bacon recipe he was trying.

Simple Bacon Recipe

Ingredients

3 pounds of unsliced pork belly about 1 1/2" thick and 6 to 8 " wide across the grain to make slicing easy and to make sure it fits in the frying pan

4 1/2 teaspoons Morton's kosher salt

4 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper

6 tablespoons dark brown sugar

3/4 cup distilled water

1/2 teaspoon Prague Powder #1

Method:

Pour everything except the meat into a zipper bag large enough to hold the belly. A 1 gallon bag will hold a single 3 pound slab. Zip the bag and squish everything around until well mixed. Now add the belly, squeeze out the air as much as possible and squish some more rubbing the cure into the belly and coat all sides. Put the bag in a pan to catch leaks and place in the fridge at 34 to 38 °F for 3 to 5 days.

The belly will release liquid so every day or two you want to gently massage the bag so the liquid and spices are well distributed, and flip the bag over. Remove the belly from the bag, and throw the liquid away. Quick rinse it to wash off any thick deposits of salt on the surface.

Smoke over indirect heat at 225°F until the internal temp is 150°F, about 2 hours.

Now let it cool on a plate in the fridge. Cold bacon is easier to slice. Use on a slicer if you have one, or use a long thin knife to slice it. Slice across the grain. For perfect even thickness slices, a slicing machine is the best choice.

Paired with some eggs and you have an amazing breakfast, or you can make a BLT!

The Tappecue was also used to monitor the temperature of some smoked chicken breasts. They too turned out wonderful. Using a Tappecue we were able to monitor the temperatures and adjust the heat of the smoker once the Bacon was done.

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