A Bit Confused

[mrphilips]

but to be clear - you're only hot-smoking because the cold smoke you get leaves your meat open to contamination too long?

[FLBentRider]

but to be clear - you're only hot-smoking because the cold smoke you get leaves your meat open to contamination too long?

I would definitely try it to see how we like it.

I did my first batch to 160, next batch to 155, then 150, etc... The 145 batch was much harder to get the skin off.

I may try to get the skin off pre-cure, but the last time I tried that it was not pretty. At all.

[Habanero Smoker]

mrphilips;

I find if I slice the bacon too thick, it will have a texture closer to ham, when sliced thin it has the same texture as commercial bacon.

When I make savory bacon, I bring it up to a internal temperature of 140°F, and sweet bacon (such as the bacon you are making) to 150°F. I don't detect any difference in the taste or texture when they are fully cooked; but I realize that taste and texture is different per individual. The reason I precook sweet bacons to 150°F, because when I fry, it get to my desired crispness easier with out the sugars burning, other then that you don't have to bring it up to that temperature.

Whether the belly was cured with cure #1 or properly cured with salt, the danger zone should not matter during the smoking/cooking time. When you prepared your bacon the other way (raw), what internal temperature did you take the bacon, or did you just cold smoked it under 90°F and packaged it. Or was it hot smoked to an internal temperature of 139° or higher.

[mrphilips]

i hear you about the cook time, crispiness and hamier thickness... points taken.

when i prepared it raw-ish style, i did mine under 100F approx.

in my part of canada, the food handler's regulations are to keep un-cured high-risk meat out of the 39-140F (or 4-60C) zone for anything longer than 30min, or else you risk bacterial growth, etc (trichinosis is only found here in imported pork). but with all the curing salts, i have no issues pushing bacon a few hours to smoke even if the temp is within that zone, especially since i'll be cooking it afterwards.
when i cold smoked the bacon, it was under 100F (and above 39F) for that whole time - about 4 hours total.

i guess if i had hot-smoked it, i would avoid the "danger zone" period, but i wasn't overly concerned... we originally cured and smoked to make things safer ultimately, right?

so are you guys hot-smoking to inhibit growth or just for texture/crispiness/cook-time, etc?

[Habanero Smoker]

The danger zone is the same here in the States. I believe you have misread my response. My inquiry to what temperatures you used was to clarify what you did. A lot of members use hot smoking temperatures, and refer to it as cold smoking.

As stated in my other post, if the bacon is cured, with a nitrite or properly cured with salt only, you do not have to worry about the danger zone during the smoke time. There is no safety reason why you would have to avoid the danger zone.

[mrphilips]

ok, sorry if i misread something.
i think i have it now, and i do understand the savory vs sweet concern.

and just to clarify - in your opinion bringing the IT to somewhere between140 and 150 is important to get the bacon to a better cooking-ready state for crispiness and cook time only, correct?

but as an aside that may be taking this well out of the initial thread's intent (if i haven't already)...
the bacon i get here is labelled as uncooked and looks significantly less hammy than the pictures of finished bacon i'm seeing on the forum. i see how the thickness would be a factor as you mentioned, and with a slicer i may be able to get it much closer, but the store-brand bacon here seems to be redder, wetter, and definitly completely raw - not brought to any dicernable IT.
i wonder if we're talking about two completely different beasts...

[mrphilips]

...but maybe i'm just smoking the wrong stuff.
either way, they're all delicious.

i think next time i'll try it both ways again and see how it pans out. post some pics too.

[viper125]

Nothing wrong with cold smoking. But you need to make sure you cook it long enough to kill all the bad things. I cook smoke mine to 140-145 and its safe to eat that way. Also quicker to fry up. I can eat mine cold or hot with out fear. (Bad habit form when I was young) You can buy it either way.

[mrphilips]

i could also have quite esily over-cooked or dried out my first (hot-smoked) attempt and found it too dry in comparison to the cold-smoked variety i tried afterwards.
the cold-smoked kind seemed closer to store-bought to me (not that that's better, just what's more "expected"), but there's a number of factors that may add up to that too... packaged meats always tend to be quite wet when the package is opened.

when i cook the raw stuff, i find what habanero said is so true... the sweetness on it chars a bit and leaves an almost sooty, burnt taste. i can see that hot-smoking would resolve that.

nothing left to do but experiment some more!

i bought the pork bellies today at lunch but i left them in the work fridge :(
at least it's not friday.

[FLBentRider]

I did mis-speak when I stated that I didn't want to cold smoke it under 40F.

But in my environment, with just the SG the box can get 100-125F.

I need to build a new cold-smoke setup.

[mrphilips]

built a nifty one with an optional ice-bucket attachment/sunroof... http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=23287.msg307561#msg307561 but i haven't used it for a proprer smoke out yet. the temp dropped before the need came up.
i feel the need may come up shortly... the bacon talk is making me squirley

[Habanero Smoker]

mrphilips;

For savory bacon, I guess the 140°F is a habit left over from times the trichonosis was a major problem. Many home recipes recommended taking it to 139°F, so I tended to go with that to ensure the parasite was killed. I use 140°F, because most thermometers are + 2 degrees; and 140°F for at least 1 minute was deemed safer. But that parasite is not an issue any more with commercial pork.

For sweet bacons, the 150°F gives me better cooking-ready state for crispiness and cook time only.

The cold smoking method you are using for your bacon is fine.

[mrphilips]

that makes sense, habs
thanks

[mrphilips]

i have another question for you guys with the tricks...

i have a few good recipes for sweet bacons which use sweet liquids, like honey and syrup.
and i can imagine a few recipes for savory/savory-sweet recipes which would use salty liquids, like soy sauce...

if one was starting with the "basic dry cure", anyone have a rule of thumb on how to reduce the salt and sugar in the cure order to allow for the sweet or salty liquids to be added without over salting or sweetening?

i realize the liquids are bulkier in both volume and weight, but as they are solutions, they are by nature more dilute than the powders... just curious as i want to experiment with a few ideas and haven't made bacon more than a few times.
trial and error will prevail no doubt, but if anyone has played around and has a suggestion, i'd like to hear it

[Habanero Smoker]

If you goal is to make a wet cure (wet brine), then you would be better off by adding cure #1, and additional salts, and sweetener to the liquid.

I have been working on a formula that will let me know how much salt is in a serving of food; such as soy sauce. I still working on it, but I can tell you that a teaspoon of table salt (pickling/canning salt) has 2,300 mg sodium (if my memory serves me right). If the soy sauce label says 700 mg sodium and a serving is one tablespoon; there are 16 tablespoon per cup. That would equal 11,200 mg sodium per cup. Divide that by 2,300, that come to about 4.9 tablespoons per cup, or 5 tablespoons. That would be the amount of salt per cup you would delete for a wet brine. I don't have any soy sauce in my house, so the 700mg is a guess.

The above may sound confusing, but I still working on it, and haven't worked on it for a while.