Hi all, BBQ lovers.
A while back I got curious about cold smoking bacon. I’d never done it before, so I had a bit of new learning to do on this journey. First I have to say that I’m absolutely no cold-smoking pro, so there are surely plenty of people who think my way of doing it is completely nuts.
But anyway, as I said, I wanted to try making my own bacon from scratch and then cold smoking it.
If you want more bacon ideas, you’ll also find our collection of 21 fantastic bacon recipes.
Cold smoking is done at +20C to +40C, so I started looking into how to solve that without buying a pile of equipment, and how I could manage it in my ordinary kettle grill.
I looked into how to salt the meat, how long it should spend in the smoke, and then the rest.
The first time, I smoked the meat for 3 days, and good grief, how smoky it got! To my taste it was far too smoky, but I handed some out and plenty of people thought it was incredibly good.
The method I’m going to describe for you here, though, is a 24 hours smoke, and it turned out incredibly well balanced and delicious. I also chose to dry-salt the pork.
What you have to remember is to keep up good, strict hygiene throughout the whole process. That is extra important here, since we’re dry-salting, then drying, and finally cold smoking.
There are five steps to making this bacon, and it will take 20 days to finish!
Here’s what you need to get started:
- 2 ¼ lb pork belly, rind removed.
- Zip-lock bags
- 2¾ oz non-iodized salt
- 20 g curing salt (nitrite salt)
- 2¾ oz dark muscovado sugar
You can happily mix in various spices. I’ve used dried jalapeño and it turned out very tasty.
Mix the salts and the sugar well, preferably in a blender.
I put the meat in a large zip-lock bag and poured half of the salt mixture over it, rubbing the salt in very carefully. I turned the bag over and poured the rest of the salt over, rubbing it in thoroughly on this side too. I pressed as much air out of the bag as I possibly could. Then I put it in a second zip-lock bag, just to be safe. I kept massaging the salt into the meat for a few minutes before putting it in the fridge in a dish.
The fridge you use should be set to +2C to +4C.
Now the curing starts: turn the meat and massage the salt into it every other day. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to turn the pork. I didn’t strictly need it, since I went down to our extra fridge after work every day anyway to check on things. The pork will release liquid while the salt penetrates the meat.
When 14 days of lovingly turning and massaging have passed, it’s time for the next step: soaking the pork to draw out the salt.
Soaking the pork simply means rinsing the meat in cold water for a number of hours. I chose to do this for 2 days to try to get the right salt balance, and it works for me. If you want it saltier, don’t do it for that long, but stop at 1 day.
I used a food-grade bucket for this. I took the pork out of the bags and rinsed it under the tap. Then I put the meat in the bucket and poured in fresh cold water until the meat was covered. Then I changed the water once an hour. When I went to bed or left for work, the bucket stood in the fridge with a lid and fresh water. When I got home, I picked up again with changing the water in the bucket once an hour.
After soaking the pork, I wanted to air-dry it for 2 days, partly to dry the liquid out of the meat and partly to prepare the meat for smoking. I put the pork on an oven rack and set it over a larger aluminum pan. Put it in the fridge.
As you can see in the picture on the right, the meat has contracted and become taller, because the water has dried out of the meat and the fat has firmed up again. This also makes for a slightly firmer bacon. If you don’t want it that firm, and would rather have it more like Scan or similar, only dry it for 12 to 24 hours.
Now it’s time to cold smoke the pork.
I used my ordinary kettle grill for this, and I had nothing to hold the sawdust.
This is what you need.
Make small holes in the sheet of foil. I made lots of little holes with a skewer, so that oxygen can get in to the sawdust. Pour a pile of sawdust onto the foil. I took about 8 ½ cups Then I used a kitchen torch to get the embers going. I lit it in four places on the pile, and at each spot I held the flame on for quite a long time so I knew it would catch.
Now put on the grate, with a good thermometer by the grate so you can keep an eye on the temperature. I left the vents on the grill fully open for about 20 minutes so that the embers would catch properly.
Now I put the pork on the grill, and I left the bottom and top vents fully open for another 20 min so that I wouldn’t kill the embers.
Once I saw the temperature climb to about 25 degrees, I closed the bottom vent so there was only an extremely small air intake, and I closed the top one so it was open about ¼ in. There should be about as much smoke as from a cigarette. The trick now is to try to stay between 20 and 35 degrees Celsius, but on several occasions I was up at 40 degrees Celsius, though never hotter than that.
I found that 8 ½ cups lasted about 6 to 8 hours, depending on how low I managed to keep the temperature, of course.
Now it was just a matter of waiting, keeping an eye on the temperature and making sure there was some smoke development. I’ll admit it was a bit nerve-racking, considering how many hours were already behind this project.
But time went by and it went surprisingly well. This was my second time, so I had learned a little from the first attempt.
When it’s time to refill the sawdust, open the vents again, because it’s like starting over. Then do the same as before: light it in four places, but this time put the grate with the meat back on right from the start. Leave the vents open for 15 minutes, or until you notice the temperature has climbed back above 26 degrees Celsius. Then slowly lower the vents again. Keep in mind that there isn’t much glowing in the sawdust, so be careful about choking the air too fast, because it dies out easily. After 24 hours, the pork is done smoking.
Now begins the last part of the process: the rest. This is done in the fridge again.
Put the smoked pork in a dish and place it in the fridge to rest for at least 12 hours. I let it rest for 24 hours before slicing it up.
The smoke flavor will spread and settle into the meat during this period, so give this its time too.
Now comes the nice part: slicing into your very own home-smoked bacon for the first time. This, my friends, is a luxury, and I promise you that you’ll never want to eat store-bought bacon again. Slice the bacon with either a slicing machine if you have one or, like me, a well-sharpened knife. Remember that the bacon should be cold when you slice it, because that makes it much easier.
I’m going to make more bacon going forward, and among other things try injecting brine and letting it sit for a day before soaking out the salt. I also want to experiment with spices in the salt, maybe mustard powder now for Christmas.
Try your way to the method that suits you best, and good luck!
