More Bacon…..:)

The weekend began Friday night with preparing the bacon-to-be that had been curing for the past 2 weeks. It goes under the tap for a good rinsing to lose the salt and maple syrup. Per another recipe, I set them out on a rack on a sheet pan in the fridge for 12 hours. This is to develop a pellicle – a sticky/dry surface texture to which the smoke has better adhesion.

The bacon smokes in a 200F smoker for about 2 to 3 hours…it’s not really time, but rather temperature that determines when things are ‘done’. The target temperature is 150F. When they were on sale last year I picked up a 4-probe InkBird Bluetooth thermometer. Wicked cool gadget (it was about $65 on sale) and allows tracking and alarms for each probe independently. Huge plus doing a full brisket where the point and the flat are done at different times/temps, not to mention when doing a slew of bacon! Can see a time/temp graph too! Phone vibrates when each probe reaches target temperature.

We’ve always BBQ’d all winter…and with the smoker the first winter it seemed to have a hard time keeping up. The thinish metal lets all the precious heat escape. PitBoss sells an insulating blanket….but it’s mega $$ ($110 USD so shudder to think what that would be delivered to Toronto!). I can see from the material that it’s the same as welding blankets are made of (woven fiberglass) to be able to handle the heat. A few months ago, Princess Auto (#DROOL) had two small welding blankets on sale for under $20CAD! Use one folded up at the top 1/2 of the grill and it makes a noticeable difference – both in how quickly the smoker comes to temp, and also the pellet consumption. May look a bit ghetto, but does the trick! Folded 4 times at top so imagine it’s a greater R value than the PitBoss ‘tailored’ version.