The Bacon Experiment

UPDATE: The bacon is all done and I thought I'd share the results. We discovered that by hanging the bacon in the smoker instead of laying it flat on the racks, we could get much more in there. That left us with only two more batches to smoke. That wasn't the part that ruined it though. I didn't take into account that the seven days of curing was for a slab of pork. The sliced pieces soaked it up much faster and the bacon is overly salty/sweet. We found that if we cut it up into little bits and used it in dishes like scalloped potatoes, it was fine. It is too strong to eat on it's own though. Next up is the ham. If that turns out well, I'll consider trying again next year.

So far the great bacon experiment is not going well. What's the great bacon experiment, you ask? Each year we purchase a cow and a pig from a local farmer. This year, we decided to keep all of our pork fresh (uncured) so that we could cure it ourselves. I found this blog that made it look real easy, so without much planning, we began. Our first mistake was having our "bacon" (technically not bacon until it has been cured and smoked, but that's what I'm calling it) sliced by the butcher. It would have been much easier if we had left it in a slab, but what's done is done, so we move on. Our second mistake was curing nearly ten pounds of meat, then discovering that we could only fit about one pound at a time in the smoker. That means that a lot of it is drying out in the refrigerator and probably won't be as juicy as it should be. Maybe I'm wrong and that part won't hurt it at all. That would be a welcome surprise. Our third mistake was using a smoker without any instructions. Neither of us has smoked anything before (foodwise that is) so we just followed the instructions on the blog. Apparently, there is more than one kind of smoker and ours was not the same as the one on the blog. We left the bacon in there all night and it never reached anything near 150 degrees like the instructions said. It did, however, turn into jerky. I tried frying it to see if it was any good. Because it was so dry, it burned very easily.Once I finally got some cooked without blackening it, it was ok. Terribly smoky, but edible. On a positive note, mistake two probably saved the rest of the bacon from suffering the same fate. We have a second chance (or ten)! BUT, we won't know the fate of the rest of the bacon right away due to mistake four (is that right? I've lost count!). I'm not taking the blame for this one though. This was the fault of some very nosy puppies who were trying to get to the yummy meat smell that was just out of reach. They didn't get the meat, but they did get the full bag of hickory chips. And they were so proud of themselves too.
P.S. I just realized that the picture of the bacon in the fridge gives a rather disturbing sample of our diet. Despite what it looks like, we do not live on bacon and alcohol (tempting as that may be!).