Makin' Bacon-- Part II

Alright, a week ago I had a post about making bacon with the dry rub, etc.  Those two pieces of bacon, 10 lbs, have been curing now for a week.  Today I took them out and rinsed them very well in cold water.  After that I patted them dry and put a bunch of fresh ground pepper on them. The result is below.

I left them to set for several hours in the open air before smoking.  This allows a film to coat the meat that helps the smoke to stick.

Here is the meat in the smoker.  It is really basic.  I like a light smoke on my bacon, so only a couple of hours is necessary.  I keep the heat at about 220F for a hot smoke. 

This is the finished product.  It has a really nice brown, smoked coating and smells great.

Here it is sliced into two.  Notice how think and meaty it is.  The lighter shade at the top on the piece to the right is not fat.  That is a nice thick layer of light pink meat.  There is actually very little fat, maybe 20%.  It slices like butter.  At this point I cut it into smaller, one severing pieces and vacum pack them individually to use as needed.  I fried up some of the end pieces you see on the edge of the photo and it was very good.  It is very different than the type I made last time. This has a more intense flavor.  You can taste all the herbs and garlic.  This isn't the kind of bacon you sit down and eat a pound of.  It's very rich and it doesn't take much for me to feel full.  Rich food does that to me.

This is actually bacon from the prior batch that is the more traditional, sweet type.  We decided to have breakfast for dinner, so I fried some up.

It cooks up very well and is crispy golden when finished.

These are some of the hierlooms from the garden.  I wanted to use them so I cut them up, along with some pear type and stewed them with some onion, garlic, tyme, red pepper flake, salt and pepper.  

Here it is when it is nice and stewed down, but still with plently of liquid.  I poached three eggs in the stew and spooned the whole thing over toasted home made bread, with the bacon on the side.  It was good.