cooking / smoking bacon

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cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Sun Apr 06, 2014 9:08 am

I just want to find out a couple of things, and may not always be using the right terms, so please bear with me.

I grew up in the Netherlands and we always used to buy a slab of "spek", cured belly pork on the rind. I think unsmoked but I am not sure. I also think it was not cooked through to anything like 70 oC or so.
We used it for frying with eggs, as lardons etc etc. It would be kept in the fridge and would dry out a bit. The nice thing was that it wouldn't stick to the pan.
I am looking at making something like that. I suppose pancetta would be closest to it?

Something else I would like to find out:
If I cure some belly pork and then smoke at a fairly low temperature (somewhere 35 oC or so), do I then have to finish it in the oven to 69 oC internal temperature or can I leave out that step and keep some in the fridge for consumption in the next 10 days and freeze the remainder?

Cooking it seems to me like it would give me another product, more like what I know as "katenspek" and of which I don't know the English name. I think it is called something similar in German though.

Thanks
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby BriCan » Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:17 am

I come up with the following


http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katenspek

and photos that look like this ..


Image
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby wheels » Sun Apr 06, 2014 11:29 am

In the UK, we don't hot smoke or cook our bacon until immediately before use. 1000's of tons of what you describe is sold here and is known as Streaky Bacon. It's available cold smoked or unsmoked.

Brican is gradually converting our N. American friends to it's use! :lol: :lol:
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Sun Apr 06, 2014 11:37 am

Totally forgot to google it. Apparently katenspek is bellypork that is salted, then cooked and then smoked.
I am not sure if there will be a taste difference between first cooking, then smoking as opposed to first smoking, then cooking.
The pictures I have seen of people smoking belly pork and finishing it off till an internal temperature of about 70 oC definitely look similar.

What I am after looks like this
https://www.delixl.nl/webshop/catalog/p ... otionPage=

And it actually answers part of my question: this is gerookt spek = smoked belly pork.

Looks like I am going to do some cool smoking (can't really cold smoke in my climate)
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Sun Apr 06, 2014 11:40 am

Thanks wheels, your post came in while i was typing mine and it confirms what I was thinking
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby BriCan » Sun Apr 06, 2014 5:12 pm

badjak wrote:Looks like I am going to do some cool smoking (can't really cold smoke in my climate)

Cool smoking/cold smoking are in fact both the same thing.

Cool/cold smoking is a way of just adding smoke flavour which means another way of adding another layer of flavour to the product -- most times it also means one has to cook the product before eating

Hot smoking as the name implies, means that the product is cooked along with/while the product is smoking

Total difference between the two ... cool/cold smoking = better/longer shelf life and also better flavour profile .... hot smoking = shorter shelf life and not as good a flavour ....... IMHO

If need be because of your climate (??) ....... you could smoke in the cool of the evening/night/early morning

HTH
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby BriCan » Sun Apr 06, 2014 5:21 pm

wheels wrote:Brican is gradually converting our N. American friends to it's use! :lol: :lol:


You do not know how true them there words are :|

If I had of known then (younger and foolish :cry: ) what I know now (old and stu*** :? ) I would be a lot richer and not poorer :cry:
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Mon Apr 07, 2014 6:44 am

Thanks again :D

I was scared to talk about cold smoking as that is supposed to be below 20 oC or so and we don't normally get below those temperatures, not even at night.
In October, our hottest month, we sit at 45 oC daytime and 35 oC night time temperature
In July, our coldest month it is 25 oC / 10 oC but that is still quite some time away.

At the moment it is around 35/25 oC.
I have contemplated night time smoking, but I am a bit worried as I use a proQ csg and sometimes it doesn't run its full course. I think because of humidity. Bottomline is I like to check on a regular base, and that's easier at day time.

Would 35 oC be too warm?
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby NCPaul » Mon Apr 07, 2014 11:17 am

It would be for me. I've run the CSG at night with no problems, I think that would be a better option.
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Mon Apr 07, 2014 2:25 pm

Luckily it is a cool day today (for us, 28 oC).
The belly pork is out of the soaking water and hanging to dry.
I should be able to put the pork in the smoker by about 18:00 - 19:00 today (I think) and that gives me a couple of hours to check on the csg.

I cut off a small piece to boil and eat with sauerkraut tonight (and smoked sausages) :drool:

I don't know why mine went off a couple of times, maybe the dust was a bit too coarse, maybe the RH too high?
Let's see what happens this time

And thanks all for helping me out.
Wish I could invite you all to come and taste my first smoked bacon.
Well, I can and I do invite you all, but it might just be a tat too far most of you...
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:26 pm

The bacon is ready!
I did run into some problems keeping the proQ csg running. In the end I think it got about 5-6 hours of smoke in a 12 hour period.
Still need to figure out what I am doing wrong here.
The temperature in the smoker was between 20 and 26 oC.

Part of the bacon has gone in the freezer (with rind and all), the remainder is in the fridge, wrapped in a tea towel.
I like the taste of it, so all's well that ends well :D

I smoked some eggs at the same time. Easy and always nice
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby wheels » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:27 pm

I'm glad it's worked out OK. That's a very short smoking time: I prefer it with more smoke, so I'll politely decline your offer to pop over and taste some! :lol: :lol:

Phil
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Tue Apr 08, 2014 2:17 pm

ouch!

How long would you smoke it for?
I would have done 12 hours,but struggled a bit, as explained.
I thought of hanging it back in the smoker, but it was too hot today
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby wheels » Tue Apr 08, 2014 4:10 pm

The correct amount of time to smoke it is enough to make it how you like it!

As much as anything, I was 'picking up on' the vast distance to visit.

Phil :D :D
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Re: cooking / smoking bacon

Postby badjak » Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:32 am

Phil, i would still like to know how long you smoke it for.
It is my first attempt and I am happy, even thouh I will have to eat it all by myself :D

It doesn't have a very smoky flavour though.

I need to work on keeping the smoker going properly through the night and maybe smoke 10 hours, or even longer?
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