Low Fat Bacon ?

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Well not really.  Just real skinny.

Been really badly wanting to do some bacon, but finding pork bellies down here isn't easy.  I found two sources, and two weeks ago brought home a whole belly plus half a second.  I thought they looked a bit skimpy, but in their frozen state I had no idea.

Thawed the belly and half just enough to break 'em down and it was immediately clear - scrawny belly.  Oh well - pressed onward anyways.  Today the first batch got done.  About 5.5 lbs of raw pork belly, cured using Tenpoint5's basic method from his Maple Cured Bacon on the recipe site, using brown sugar and no maple syrup, as I didn't want a really sweet bacon.  After 5.5 days (yesterday) of curing and flipping they were ready. Today they got 2 hrs 40 mins of Apple smoke and taken only to 130 °F.

The skinny bacon - pretty side



The other side, skin removed


Did a couple of slices on a wide angle to get some width on the cut as a sampler, and ran 'em through the convection oven as I usually cook bacon .  Got the OMG reaction with two thumbs up from the wife as she chewed away, and she's not the biggest fan of bacon.  This is make you weak-in-the-knees good!

Great stuff!  Thanks, Tenpoint5 for the recipe and tutorial!

BTW,  those skins are destined for the bean or soup pot at some point in the future.

[GusRobin]

looks good. i have the same problem about trying tofind some good bellies.

[Tenpoint5]

I would be slicing them skins and dropping some hot oil!! Smoked cracklins with a splash of hot sauce. OH YEAH Glad it worked out for you and you got Corporate approval. Just out of curiosity why did you stop at 130º and not take it up to the 140-152º?

[BuyLowSellHigh]

I would be slicing them skins and dropping some hot oil!! Smoked cracklins with a splash of hot sauce. OH YEAH Glad it worked out for you and you got Corporate approval. Just out of curiosity why did you stop at 130º and not take it up to the 140-152º?

One of those skins will probably end up in Cracklin' Bread, which I haven't had since I was a teenager growing up in VA pork country.

Good question on the temp.  As you know, I really wrestled with that one.  I even considered cold smoking, which today was an option since the morning temp when I started was only 47 °F.  Since my basis for comparison is commercial bacon (still, pretty good stuff from a local area smokehouse) atfer much tooth gnashing I decided to try to end up in a similar state.  Typical commercial production is typically to an IT of 128 -130 °F.  As best I can determine that range is chosen to avoid any possible fat melt and to stay out of the protein denaturing/shrinking phase.  My WAG is they probably do that simply to minimize product loss, which isn't my concern -- I want quality.  But it's my baseline for comparison so I thought it would be a good starter.  In the near future (I hope) I plan to try both the higher temperature cooked version and a straight , drawn out, cold smoked version.

[Tenpoint5]

Sounds good enough to me. It was a speriment!!

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Prexactly!

Gotta start somewhere.

[KyNola]

Good looking bacon BLSH, skinny or not.  ;)

There is a member of the forum who hasn't been around in a while, Stickbowcrafter.  He had a great version of bacon and the smoking/cooking part was at 200 degrees smoke temp to an IT of 152.  Have done it that way and it works too.

Cool part of this forum is different ways to accomplish the same result freely shared.

Thanks for sharing your pics.

[punchlock]

Just to carry this a little further, is it possible to cold smoke the bacon? Would this work out to be the same, since the intention is to pan fry the bacon anyways.

Any thoughts?

[KyNola]

Punch,
I'll let the true bacon experts answer in detail but I'm pretty sure I have seen cold smoked bacon threads on here.  But then again, I saw NePaS smoke marshmellow peeps and chocolate bunnies at Easter too! :D

[Smokin Soon]

I'm no expert here but I would think that the curing process can only be stopped by cooking or smoking. I have had incredible results with 10.5 and others from the forum.

[punchlock]

I saw NePaS smoke marshmellow peeps and chocolate bunnies at Easter too! :D

;D ;D ;D

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Sure you can cold smoke bacon.  That's the old school.  I grew up eating dry-cured, cold smoked bacon that had never seen a temperature above 90 °F.  A similar result will probably come from Habnero Smoker's Triple Smoked Bacon recipe.

The dry cured, cold smoked bacon I know was traditionally dry cured with nitrtae, then smoked for days, something like 3-7 I think was typical.  The smoke was very thin, and can't be emulated directly in a Bradley smoker.  The smoke added a lot of flavor but served primarily as a short term preservative and deterrent to pest invasion during what was actually a drying period, like dry aging a ham.  Once it had been smoked/dried it was considered shelf stable at room temperature, and it seemed to keep best that way.  I used to by it as a slab in a cloth bag, unrefrigerated.

[KyNola]

And there you have it!

Thanks BLSH.

[punchlock]

That is very interesting thanks BLSH...

[SouthernSmoked]

Looks good to me!

Is it morning yet?

Bacon - Bacon!!