Smoked Bacon for Beginners - Page 242

So some of you loyal readers (both of you) may have noticed a gap in posts.  You probably know that this is primarily due to the fact that in addition to being a culinary school dropout's food adventure sidekick, I am also the Super Tax Genius.  This is just a bit of a busy time for me.  What you may not have known is that the cooking has continued!  So, now that tax season is easing off a bit, I'm going to get caught up on the posts.  I'm also going to back date them on the blog calendar so the legions of future Ox and Brock fans will think we were dedicated and conscientious.

So the bacon...

What a big fucking, fuck up.

If you didn't know, Ox and I are (or were, in my case) both submarine nuclear operators.  We understand stuff like surface to volume ratios because it really kinda matters when it comes to a reactor.  Turns out it's pretty important when curing meat too.

I thought a 12 pound pork belly was a pretty big commitment for a first time trying to cure something, so I got this really cute 2 pound belly from Keegan-Fillion Farm. (This belly was the source of the skin for the amazing pork rinds from the previous post).  I figured at least a 1 in 3 chance we'd mess it up (got those odds waaaaay off) so I figured we'd go small for the first time.  Should have read the part about scaling down the amount of salt rub a little more carefully.   

Turns out the relatively high surface to volume ratio means that the extremely salty cure permeates every square inch of the bacon with a flavor that, contrary to what logic would imply, tasted far saltier than eating a spoonful of salt.  After over a month of work it was quite literally, inedible.

Now we've messed some things up from the book, but we've never not been able to eat the results.  I guess there's a first time for everything.  I won't bore you with the saga of how to fuck up bacon in only 57 steps, but here are some pictures:

This was a point of high hopes

This picture does not adequately capture the amount of rub used

Truly enjoyed the smoking part of this.  Was really excited at this point

I was also impressed with my jury rigged system to avoid having to hang it.

Aaaaand the next picture would be one of us spitting out disgusting chunks of cooked salt lick.  I'll spare you.