30 lbs of bacon. I cut things a bit thicker than normal, but the flavor was great. Made me think about buying a slicer.
The thick thick cut ends go great in beans or soups.

Jesus. How can the rest of us compete with that?!!

Bacon Nirvana....

Did you smoke the Pork belly and then slice it? Please tell us more.

How the hell you even attempted 30lbs of bacon without a meat slicer is crazy to me. Good on you, I just own a meat slicer for a reason!

Yeah I smoked it fist after a 5 day brine, then sliced by hand. I use apple, cherry, and a little pecan wood. I normally slice it thinner, but I knew I had a lot to do so I went thicker. It cooks to a nice size so I'm not too worried. I know it was a lot to do, but I had the time and I already had my smoker out for more pastrami. I know, enough to give you the meat sweats.

I really want to do smoked chicken thighs again. I get one of those 6 packs at Costco and do 2 sections bbq, 2 teriyaki, and 2 Caribbean jerk using Secret Aardvark Jerk sauce. Super tasty.

Wow....well done brother! I have thought about doing a pork belly, didn't know about the brine part. What did you use for a brine?

Do it. There is a ton of info on the internet, with lots of youtube vids and DIY posts out there. I pick my pork bellies up from Costco as Costco has quality meat, and their bellies come pre skinned. Plus Costco usually has quite a few in stock so you can sort through the one you feel will have a good meat to fat ratio that you want. I've found that bellies that have a lot of fat to them, or larger fat areas, tend to feel harder in sections. Something I try to avoid as they smoke weirdly, and when they are done, tend to have a weird shape.

As for Brine I used to use exact measurements, but now I just eyeball it.
I used 1.5 table spoons Prague Powder #2 due to the quantity, and I realistically could have doubled that depending on which internet source recipe you use as your inspiration (I used Anthony's Premium Prague Powder, I'll post a link below), some kosher salt, cracked black pepper, some white pepper, Alpine Touch (Which is a seasoning blend out of Montana, and we put that shit on everything.), Hungarian paprika, and brown sugar. I wish I had exacts, but I don't. I have this long clear tub I got from Cash and Cary that I use to brine the pork bellies. I used to cut the bellies in half and put them in 2 gallon bags which are easy to flip, but I like the tub better. However, with the tub you have to do a bit more rotating of the meat as the cure does it's job it pulls moisture out of the meat, so the bottom belly is more of a wet cure than a dry cure. Rotating helps keep the cure more even. It isn't all that required, but I find it helps.

Prague Powder: https://anthonysgoods.com/products/pink ... gue-powder

Alpine Touch: https://alpinetouch.com/collections/alp ... -seasoning

Great writeup for the process, thank you!

So I've been slacking posting this up.... but I did a double smoked ham last weekend finally.
Some gratuitous picks....





So I went wild with this one.... the night before I opened the ham and drained it -- then put it in another bag and added ~2cups cherry 7UP and let it soak overnight, massaging it occasionally to work it into the sliced portion. Made up my glaze -- 4 slices of pineapple with some juice blended into oblivion, brown sugar, dijon mustard, ginger, clove, and some orange/tangerine drink that I had picked up (this stuff was AWESOME - much better than orange zest).
Smoked it until 100f --- then started glazing it every 10 degrees up to 140.

It turned out.... pretty good..... at first I had thought that I had royally eff'd it up from the first slice off the bottom.... That first slice was..... pretty bad.... REALLY salty and quite bitter Luckily, as I got past the first two slices, it got better and better! The cherry 7Up really flavored the ham well! I was hoping that it would help cut the salt flavor, and it did. The bitterness also went away, thank god.

My post smoke analysis of what happened ----
1) I'm thinking that the bottom slices of the ham collected and concentrated all the salt laden juices/moisture that was coming out of the ham --- evaporating and leaving the salt in the bottom slices. The rest of the ham is REALLY good . Its about the only logical thing I can think of to explain it.
2) The bitterness???? That was an easy one to figure out..... I tried a new set up in the WSM for a 4 hour cook --- I decided to make a WSM 'vortex' to keep all the coals gathered and burning for higher heat and longer burning....


It actually worked really good From a just under filled chimney of coal, I got a solid 4.5 hours of burn AND had the extra capacity to open the vents at the end to bump the temp up from ~250ish to 325-350!!! First time I've every been able to do that! That amount of coals spread out in the grate would not have burned so nicely or as long.
What I DID NOT expect..... I assumed that the coals would light slowly in the vortex and put 4 good sized chunks of cherry wood mixed in with the coals ---- that didn't happen - the coals all lit up right away, burning all 4 chunks of wood in the first hour and a half I had noticed that the smoke was trailing off very early, and added more thru the rest of the cook.... Yeah, it was REALLY smoky..... not to the point of being over smoked, but pretty damn close -- some may disagree. It was the maiden run for the vortex, so now I know how its going to behave and plan accordingly. Luckily it was only the bottom two slices that took the brunt of the massive smoke.
3) Even with being able to crank the heat up to 350 at the end, the glaze still didn't set Thinking about it... its not surprising considering that they tell you to turn the oven up to 400+ for glazing..... What really pissed me off the next day was that I realized that my propane torch was sitting only 5 feet away.... Next time will plan on flame glazing!

All in all, it turned out pretty good! I'm kicking myself for not anticipating how the coals/wood would burn, but thats the learning curve when you try something different. I've got one cook with the vortex under my belt now --- everything going forward should be easy! I'm really pleased with how the vortex worked --- its been my biggest gripe about the WSM that it takes sooo much coal for a shorter cook that its really not worth running it. The vortex gave a VERY consistent and easily controlled burn, and having the ability to crank the heat at the end WITHOUT using a massive amount of coal. I can't wait to do some whole smoked chickens!

I goofed.
Had some money from selling my Mosin, and saw this at Coastal while I was getting pellets. Holds three bags of pellets, with room for a little more.
There's jerky in my future.
The Traeger will be moving to work for lunchtime BBQing.

Is it just me, or do these new "automatic pellet" smokers kinda defeat the purpose of smoking meat?

To me the whole process is part of the experience, ritual of smoking meat.

Like grinding and brewing the coffee, is part of my morning happiness.

Drinking the beer and bullshitting a buddy is better than the buzz. Rolling the blunt almost tastes better than the high. Building the car is as fun as driving it. Chopping the wood is as rewarding as the heat it provides.

This is almost like a propane vs charcoal argument.

"I dont have time to babysit a grill/smoker", you say? Slow the fuck down and enjoy life a little, not just the dinner afterwards. Maybe even invite a buddy over a drink beer while you stoke the smoker.

I see your point, but no, that sounds like a "you" thing. Not in a bad way, though. You're in it for the process. Which is fine, but there's more to it, and not everybody is in it just for the process.

The wood-fired vs. gas argument is, to me, a flavor argument. A modern pellet smoker gives you the convenience of one with the flavor of the other. You get real wood smoke that's almost the same as an offset, but you have the convenience of a unit that maintains it's own temperature without using a flammable gas and getting your food all propane-y.

I like my ceramic egg and enjoy the process of setting it up, monitoring temperature, and adjusting airflow accordingly, so I get it. But on a 14hr brisket smoke, I would much rather use a pellet smoker. It's just easier to set it correctly, and you get a very comparable result.

Mmmmm ribeye.

I'm intrigued. Is it like an electric Big Chief but pellet? If so, I'm in the market for a jerkey/fish smoker. This may be the ticket.

It's literally just a pellet smoker, but instead of spreading out like a regular BBQ, it goes up. The hopper is the entire backside of the unit. I got it for the sole purpose of having a more suitable jerky/sausage smoker.

https://pitboss-grills.com/vertical-smo ... cal-smoker