Cold Smoking Your Own Bacon: The Big Smoke...

Following on from our curing exploits, it was time to smoke our bacon. First thing first we needed to decide what we were going to use as fuel for the smoker. I had managed to find a workshop that builds new wooden beams from green oak. They sell their oak shavings on ebay at a very reasonable price and it is free from any other contaminants so great for smoking. We also decided to add a little bit of maple for sweetness. Never use soft wood like pine as they leave thick bitter residues on teh meat...

Having added the fuel we hung the bacon which having cured for four days, was now rinced to remove the excess salt and then thoroughly dried. If you don't dry your bacon the smoke can form tar like residues...

The bacon is hung in the smoke house (In our case an old wardrobe we have modified) with plenty of room so that the smoke can circulate around the meat. It should take about 6 hours to take on the smoke flavour. The smoke chamber can be a little difficult to get going so I would advise using a blow torch as it makes life a lot easier.

Once your smoke house was well and truly smoking we shut the doors and left it to it. It's always best to leave it well alone. The only thing that needs to be done is the occasional refill of shavings (It needs to be refilled every 30 - 40 mins)...

Once smoked the bacon is sliced, packed and either eaten (My favourite) or frozen for eating later...