Thank you so much.... it is a process .. but bacon like this in my opinion is so much better,.... now that I have this down I will have to make more.... and if you vacuum pack pieces and freeze it you can keep it a long time....
A day before you throw it in the smoker a great technique is to rinse off your bacon, dry it off and put it on a bakers rack overnight in the fridge to develop a tacky pellicle. This helps the smoke adhere to the bacon much better.
thank you for that tip... I actually have some bellies curing right now and will be smoking them this upcoming weekend.... I will try this for sure... cold smoking is definitely not a fast way to do things..lol... but so worth it in the end....
@@AndresSmokingHotFoods As I'm writing this comment the bellies I just finished are sitting in my fridge and I'm doing the same. The other benefit to this is you won't need to smoke near as long. You can probably get the same effect with half the smoke time with your bacon. Good luck, and Cheers!
@@NotSafeForWork420 I know this is 5 months old but you dont need to cold smoke for 2 hours either. 1 hour is plenty. You are just adding flavor. Even though this bacon was cold smoked it is way over cooked/dried. I have serious doubts you can fry it crisp without it burning. I know, I messed up several bellies before I got the smoking down. The only draw back and I dont consider it a drawback is that to slice it it needs to be almost frozen. I freeze all my squares unsliced until I need them and I run them through the slicer while the are stiff from the cold. My bacon after thawing is limp the same as store bacon and you can wrap things and fry them to a nice crisp.
thank you.. I will try that,, because normally after smoking I let it sit in the fridge for a day and then vacuum pack it and throw it in the freezer...
Im very interested in your cook. I have made bacon for about 8 years with a similar method. Actually I just use Kosher salt and brown sugar for cure and nothing else. I brine 6 days. Rinse and soak for one hour in water. Put in fridge overnight . Then I smoke 1 hour. Freeze in vacuum bags until I need some, take out and slice of a quarter of a belly at a time. Now that I went through all that. I have an honest question. When my bacon is through cold smoking it is still a limp bacon. I can only slice it when mostly frozen. Remember 8 years of doing this, 2 full bellys at a time. When I first started, I smoked until kinda cooked, If you do that the bacon will be stiff (like yours). The problem came when I tried to fry the bacon. Its almost impossible to fry dry bacon to a crisp state without charing the bacon. So my question is. With your cold smoke for so may hours, does the bacon fry properly? If its burns or you are unable to make it crisp, I urge you to try a less smoked bacon. After all the smoke is just adding flavor. Its already cured and doesnt even need smoking before frying it.
thank you so much for the great comment..... When I make the bacon this way it fry's up no problem and I can get it crispy if I want it to and it doesn't burn..... when I cold smoke the bacon the temperature in the smoker doesn't get warmer than 20 Celsius..... if you are having problems with charring when you fry it that could be the sugar in the bacon, sugar burns at a much lower temperature and that could be a problem.... I would also let the bacon cure a day or two longer.... also after smoking I would let the bacon be exposed in the fridge for an extra day or two as well so that I can loose a little more moisture........ when smoking it cold like I do I does take much longer to achieve the colour and flavor I want, and trust me the smoke flavor isn't to heavy or strong......I hope this helps....
I've tried smoking a couple pork bellies. Both times it's come out way too salty. I didn't measure the amount of salt by weight. I'm sure that's part of the problem. Is 2% of weight in salt really enough to properly cure the meat? I'm more concerned of the meat going bad using just salts and no nitrates (which I don't want to use).
hi, you really do need to weigh out your salt, this is one thing I always do.... if you guess at it you can make your product way to salty...... and yes 2% salt is a great place to start.... (that is what I do for when I make sausage as well.)..... there are a couple things you can do...... you can cut the salt back to 1.9 or even 1.8% salt if needed.... you have to remember that when curing the meat it will loose water weight and even with cold smoking it and letting it rest for a few days it can and probably will loose more,, and this just makes the Saltiness of the meat even worse.... so I can't stress enough about weighing it out........... one thing you could also try if you think you have over salted the meat, after letting it cure for the right amount of days is to soak the meat in cold water for like 20-30 mins just to help draw out some of the salt,,,, then take it out and dry it off.............. i would have to double check but I'm pretty sure I used 1.9% salt on my last cure and it turned out great..but I use pickling salt(with "pink salt" in it)..... this helps against bacteria grow and is just a little added insurance, and during the curing process the nitrites will break down during that time,,,, but if you start with clean fresh meat you should be fine with regular salt.........
thank you so much,,,,, This is pork belly.... you will have to check where you shop, not all grocery stores will carry this... any good butcher shop should have it and cut you a piece the size you want..... again thank you very much :)
Sorry I call it pickling salt just from what I am used to ... this salt I buy from my spice guy already has the sodium nitrite mixed in to the proper percentage... in Canada I am not allowed to buy it on its own as a normal person.... as a registered company I could and mix it myself... I will need to make sure I clarify that in a new video...
hi, yes there is... the easiest thing to make with this is Pork Rinds (deep fry them).... i really need to make a video on this one day.... thanks for watching....
This is not a cooked bacon,,,,, this is a dry cured product.... I let it cure for the 6-7 days with the salt and sodium nitrate, by doing this and then cold smoking it (temp in smoker stayed between 20-30 C) .... this bacon I do this way you can technically eat it the way it is or slice it and fry it up..... this is like Pancetta which is also just salted and cured (not cooked)...... This falls into that world of dry cured products, like real Salami, pancetta, Prosciutto which all these are not cooked products, they have been making these things for hundreds of years..... its sometimes hard for people to grasp..... done right the product will last a very long time..... thanks for watching...
for this I use curing salt... i know I didn't really mention that in the video... I just finished shooting a new video on making cold smoked bacon and it will be coming out soon...
If you're only adding salt ya don't need to weigh it. Even if it's pickling salt . Just cover it well and you'll be fine. Everyone is weighing it proportionally to the weight of the pork. Really not needed.
i know people do that but coming from the industry we weighed everything, this way you always have a consistent product and its never to salty,, or you aren't wasting salt either... but to each there own,, this is the way I do it and like everything there is always more than one way to do it... thanks for the comment...
