Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I have a small new electric smoker (I got tired of using and cleaning my hubby's massive charcoal smoker) and I have pork belly, Ruhlman's rub recipe, maple sugar and I have even procured salt peter. I'll probably get pink curing salt later, but at the moment I have a pound of salt petre so I will use what I have.

What I don't have is a decent double smoked bacon recipe despite some determined searching. I have two smoking cookbooks that seem to be missing this and my google-fu is coming up short. Is it just a matter of smoking for 8 to 12 hours (per the standard recipes I am finding) and then resting a few hours/overnight/? and then smoking for another 8 to 12 hours?

Any suggestions?

--Lisa

Alton Brown made bacon in Scrap Iron Chef. He used cold smoke for 4-6 hours. I think he used a dryer vent hose to pipe cooled smoke into an old school locker. Can an electric smoker handle cold smoking?

Hi Jim, it can - it goes down to 50 degrees, which is considered cold smoking. But I am not using AB's recipe because I don't want to do a brine, and that just doesn't align with the amount of time I am seeing in other recipes. But maybe it would be good for double smoking... two 6 hour sessions?

One thing I didn't mention - I've done regular bacon in the smoker and it turned out really well. But I haven't figured out double smoking.

--Lisa

I never do double smoking of bacon (too much smoke for my taste), but I do know the first smoke is cold, the second smoke hot. Wish I could provide more input...

Amy

Amy, that helps. So maybe 50 degrees the first smoke and the second I will do 150 or so. I wish I could find more information online.

--Lisa

Well, despite complete incompetence on the part of the cook (me), the bacon came out most excellent. I had four small 1+ pound pieces so I made the Ruhlman standard, a honey variation and a Peri Peri variation.

I did a short and very smoky hot smoke, and then the next day I tried to do a cold smoke but my electric smoker wouldn't get cold enough (either off / no smoke or too hot / smoke). I ended up with a gallon coffee can with some wood in it after massively over heating it to get a few final hours of cold smoke.

A few days rest in the fridge and then I sliced it up with a meat slicer (which turned out to be too small, so I had to cut the bacon in half and cut half pieces).

It was in fact a comedy of errors how badly this all went. However, the bacon is wonderful. So wonderful I sliced it all and froze it in 4 piece sets immediately to keep from eating it all.

I'd share a photo but I don't have anywhere to stash it online, so you will all just have to trust me.

Thanks for everyone's help. I highly recommend the process!

--Lisa

I make bacon a couple times a month. I used Ruhlman's recipe to start. For my basic bacon, I've switched to a basic cure mix using canning salt, maple sugar, and Instacure #1. I do a hickory smoke, one time only - kinda sorta - I use 3 to 4 small packets of hickory chips over a slow three or four hour smoke. Double smoking works fine too. I have done that a couple of times. Either way gives you a much more pronounced smokiness to your bacon, which I and my family love. I've run into folks that will smoke it 3 days. It really is a matter of personal preference.

For saltiness - you can soak your bacon in water after curing. We soak ours for 1/2 hour, then remove. But we like some saltiness to the bacon. If you soak for 1 hour, then change water and soak 1 more hour, you lose most of the saltiness of the bacon. Which is handy if you want to make a bacon for someone that doesn't like too much saltiness but wants that nice bacon flavor.

Like you, I finish my bacon to 150F. That is not mandatory, but it is safer, particularly if you are serving it to "at risk" family or friends - under 5 years old or over 60 years old. I've tried apple wood and cherry for smoking bacon, but I always go back to hickory. I save my apple and cherry for poultry and fish these days.

And like you, I highly recommend it. The flavor of real smoked bacon is so utterly superior to store bought, there simply is no comparison. A well done bacon 'n cheese omelet, a couple of slices of smokey bacon on the side, with a cup of fresh brewed coffee and there is no better breakfast for love nor money in my book.

Edit: After researching Salt Peter - that looks to be Potassium Nitrate or possibly Sodium Nitrate (Chile Salt Peter), not Sodium Nitrite. Some experts really discourage the use of Sodium Nitrate with bacon. Sodium Nitrate, exposed to high heat, such as frying bacon, can form Nitrosamines. Now it really depends on who you read, but most of the literature I've looked at says limited amounts of Sodium Nitrite are better for curing bacon and that cures using sodium nitrate should be avoided. Practically, for folks in the USA, they recommend using Cure #1 (aka Pink Salt #1, Instacure #1, etc.) and not Cure #2 (aka Pink Salt #2 or similar names with #2 in them).

Sorry, that isn't good enough. You can post directly to the forum (just resize the photo down to like 800x600 or 1024xwhatevs).

Nothing beats homemade bacon. Steve, I've never soaked after curing (just rinse really well), but may try next time. I just made some a few weeks ago, so it's going to another month or so before I make more, assuming I will be able to fire up the smoker...we're already under red flag warnings most days.

Oh, and I use a mix of hickory and apple for the smoke.

Amy

Thanks to those who sent help for loading the photos. Here are two small ones.

Ruhlmans, Ruhlmans, Peri Peri, Honey


Test slice!


Thanks,

--Lisa