Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I didn't soak, just rinsed, and at 3% salt it was slightly salty for us. Not too bad though. I may go to 2.5% the next time I make it, which will be a while at 6 pounds for two people.

Not much difference between the honey and the brown sugar, and the peri peri didn't soak in enough to give real heat. I may try Shiracha in the cure next time.

I used hickory and maple for the smoke.

--Lisa

We did honey cure quite often and then moved to a maple extract and honey cure, which was pretty good too. My only problem was honey cured - and I dry cure - not brine, is that the bacon burns easily when fried or cooked in an oven. When I switched to maple sugar, that problem seemed to disappear.

I'm playing around with making a cold smoke generator and using an old metal cabinet. I love the hot smoked bacon I make with my Weber/Smokenator setup, but I'd like to be able to cold smoke as well.

I do red pepper flakes along with fresh cracked black pepper, but the red pepper doesn't give enough heat. Also, a different flavor can be had from Tatonka Dust, which we use often on our smoked pork chops. I will be making a cure mix that features its flavors next week for a few kilos of bacon.

I noticed the propensity to burn on the brown sugar cure as well as the honey. Have to watch the edges closely.

For the true cold smoke I am looking at this product, which gets rave reviews on the Smoking Meat forums. One poster called it "Cold Smoking Nirvana".

--Lisa

Todd, the owner of A-MAZE-N smoker, is a great guy and turned me on to the hickory chips I'm using at the moment. I highly recommend his stuff. I'm going more the coffee can/aquarium pump approach while I'm in the Philippines, but I very much intend to get his unit when I return to the States.

I had a horrible episode with "Pig Candy" bacon, when I switched out the brown sugar for the local Muscovado sugar. Talk about burnt and ugly! I hoard my maple sugar for my cure, but I'm so tempted to do Pig Candy with maple sugar.

Excellent! I love a first hand reference. Now to convince my husband...

--Lisa

If you are using a Bradley Digital Smoker or similiar, the trick to getting a cold smoke in my research is to separate the smoke unit (which generates a small amount of heat) from the enclosure using a pipe. Bradley offers an accessory for their units, but I'll bet a little ingenuity can get it done for under $20 if you want to. I've heard of people putting ice in the enclosure on very warm days when the temp will exceed smoking temp simply due to sun/ambient temp.

Thank you, but I have an Masterbuilt Electric... and I tried the ice. It didn't help enough, unfortunately.