Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation First go at Bacon

Maple bacon smoke with apple wood chunks.



Very good for a first go I think.

Where dud you get the pork belly? I would like to try making bacon.

Looks good Jim!

Where did you get the pork belly? I would like to try making bacon.

Nice jimbo!!

I’m not Jim but I get mine at Costco or cash n carry

Did you use real maple syrup?

Local place over east makes bacon. They get their bellies by the case from Cloverdale meats in North Dakota.

The case weighs about 36 to 38 pounds and has three sides in it.


The maple syrup we use comes from DannyL on the campfire here.

I need to get some more.

Thanks everyone.

Ok ... where is the recipe / process... and resulting ... good, or Great statement.

Interested also. I have a pork belly thawing in the fridge now.

This is the recipe I used.

We made a slab of maple and traditional.


The process is after the recipe.

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/pork-recipes/how-make-smoked-bacon-home

Jim, about what would the cost per pound work out to?

Off the top of my head......I think that case was $3.79 per pound.

I dont know if that fellow marked them up or not.



There is some loss......it takes a sharp knife to make a square slab of bacon! I saved all the trimmings in a bag for sausage.


Not sure if I will end up beating the store on price or not....have not priced bacon recently.


It so easy though......three day soak and you turn it every day. Rinse off. Smoke till 150 inside.

That's less than I might have thought Jim. I'll bet it is good.

I'll order five pounds Jim. I can see it now, "Conrad's home style bacon". Hey, Jimmie Dean made a second career selling sausage. I always wondered about cowboy boots on a hog man.

Thanks for the link

Next time instead of adding water to the maple bacon try adding bourbon. Just substitute the same amount of bourbon for the water. Cheap bourbon seem to work just as well as drinking bourbon. Same goes for tequila.

Try H.E.B. grocery stores. My local HEB regularly carries it. Price is usually about $4.00/lb. I have not made any lately as Kroger keeps running their store brand bacon on sale for $2.99/lb. Picked up 5 lbs of it again tonight. Granted, it is not as good as what you can make yourself or Wright brand bacon, but it ain't bad bacon at all and a lot more cost effective and easier.

If you really want a good lean bacon, try making it out of boneless pork butts. Note that when cooking bacon made with pork butts, you will probably need to add a little lard. Or better still, add a little saved regular bacon grease to your skillet as it is so lean. Also, they are a lot cheaper than pork bellies. Quite often I can find regular bone-in butts on sale for .99/lb at H.E.B. and on occasion boneless at Aldi for .99/lb. I keep several in the freezer for roasts, stew meat, pulled pork, sausage, mixing with deer for chili meat, etc.

Wished old son (postoak cowboy) would come on and talk about his bacon. Damn he made some good bacon. Last batch he made was out of Berkshire hogs he raised and butchered. Man it was good!!!

He did a country ham this year that I didn’t get any of. Apparently it was good. I think it took him about 9 months.