Spoiler alert - the bacon turned out very well. Salty, smoky and fried up nice and crispy. We were all pleased, relieved and a bit surprised that the process was easy and straight-forward with a predictable, positive result.
Yesterday afternoon I removed the pork belly from the ziploc bags and rinsed under cold, running water and then patted dry with paper towels. You can see the cured pork belly in the photo on the left.
A couple of cold drinks later (~2 hours) and the pork belly was at 155F and I removed from the smoker to cool.
I could not wait for the bacon to cool for the full hour as directed - too anxious. You can see the result below as I sliced a few thin pieces to fry up and taste. Overall, it's pretty cool.
The Primo Grill was then set up for indirect smoking with a mixture of lump charcoal and hickory. The smoker temperature was set for ~200F - low and slow. An instant read thermometer was inserted into the thickest piece. ~155F was the target internal temperature.
A couple of cold drinks later (~2 hours) and the pork belly was at 155F and I removed from the smoker to cool.I could not wait for the bacon to cool for the full hour as directed - too anxious. You can see the result below as I sliced a few thin pieces to fry up and taste. Overall, it's pretty cool.
A couple of notes for next time
- four days is plenty long for the salt cure in the refrigerator; I went closer to six and likely contributed to the salty taste
- I'll rinse with cold water more thoroughly
- other than that the process and cure mixture will remain the same.
Have a great weekend!!
It was delicious!
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