Applewood Smoked Cider Mill Bacon

[Pam Gould]

Tee....you a wacko....no way....well maybe for other reasons......

Yes he is but we love him anyways ☆¸.✿¸.•°*”˜ƸӜƷ˜”*°•.•.¸ღ¸☆

[bbqchef]

Cliff...

That's great looking bacon. I just did some for the first time the other day (see other post) and it turned out great.

Brining some pork loins for American-style  Canadian bacon now...  hope to smoke it next weekend.

Apple wood is my "go to" wood  for any pork! For the streaky bacon I combined apple and maple  to compliment the maple sugar brine.

Thanks for the tip about adding the cure after the brine cools... I never knew that!

Mike

[TentHunteR]

Hey Mike, I saw your post and like it too! I love maple too, but alas the wife doesn't, so I had to come up with another flavor profile.

BTW - I like you apple/sugar maple blend idea! Sugar Maple is a very under-rated and great smoking wood for sausage, ham, etc.  I recently used sugar maple for the holiday summer sausage and our holiday ham.

Cliff

[smokeasaurus]

I screwed up one time and grabbed sugar maple by mistake and used it for a brisket cook and the brisket came out nice...go figure.......

[bbqchef]

I live on Cape Cod but my oldest daughter lives in Vermont. One of her co-workers has his own sugar shack so I get real maple syrup from him. It's expensive but well worth the cost!

For cooking I prefer Grade B syrup. For pouring onto pancakes, etc. Grade A.

Imitation maple syrup is just plain nasty!

[Lemonhead78]

Awesome post tee. I want to make this when I get my mak. How long to let it sit to get pellicle. What am I looking for ? If I want to freeze the finished product should I not slice it ?

[TentHunteR]

Awesome post tee. I want to make this when I get my mak. How long to let it sit to get pellicle. What am I looking for ? If I want to freeze the finished product should I not slice it ?

Thanks!

Some guys will let the pellicle form for hours, but honestly the amount of time to let it sit and form the pellicle is NOT really all that critical.  The pellicle is a layer of sticky protein that starts forming as soon as you pull it out of the brine and pat it off.  As soon as the bacon feels slightly tacky to the touch you are good to go.  The pellicle will continue to form while you are cold-smoking.  I usually just pat it off with really well with some paper towels, sit it on some racks on the stove with the vent/hood turned on for about an hour or so. 

I usually slice all of the bacon, then vac-seal and freeze in 1 lb packs. this way I only have to clean the slicer once, and I can pull a pack out of the freezer when needed and it's already sliced.