Good morning. i was wondering if there was anything stopping me from smoking my own bacon in my PBC? I know the video show it being done with a Weber but if i can keep the internal temp at 225 why can't I??
thanks to all in advance for replying. Really looking forward to your answers.
thanks,
I don't have a PBC, which I'm sure would get the job done, but I would lean toward just doing the Weber kettle. You're going to be cooking this thing for a couple of hours at most, so getting a lot of smoke to it during that time is fairly important, IMO.
A friend of mine has a PBC and he reports that he could not get it to run under 250* without extinguishing the coals. Your results may differ. Definitely try a practice cook without meat to test it.
I've done bacon on my PBC before, don't recall what temp the pit was running, but the end product was pretty good. I had 5 good size slabs of bacon in there, as well as 2 racks of ribs, so the amount of meat hanging, probably kept the temperature in check.
Jerod, maybe i'm mistaken, but if i remember correctly the video states to get and keep the internal temp at 225? if i'm wrong then i'm wrong. This was just the smoking part of the bacon, before i slice it. This is not the actual cooking of the bacon. This would be for smoking it. I haven't gone and looked at the video lately but will do before i actually begin this project.
thanks,
Yeah, with making bacon, I consider 225 kind of reference temp for smoking in general, but you can do it at different temps. As said above, the 165 internal is a better goal.
Wolverine4400 just to flesh out a little about Jerod's comment, the PBC naturally runs closer to 275* with both rebar in and no leaks when using the 40 lit coals to start it off. While most smoking recipes call for an extended 225* cook, due to the magic of the PBC, stuff seems to turn out plenty moist and tender when cooking at the higher temps. The shorter cook times is one of the reasons I have hesitated to do long smokes on anything other than my PBC - why wait 12-14 hours when I can be done in 6-8?
So if you want to smoke bacon on the PBC, I think the general consensus is to use the PBC as it wants to be used. I don't think anyone (correct me if I'm wrong Jerod Broussard) is saying you should smoke it at 600* and as long as it gets to 165* IT you are good
All that being said, if you really want to cook it per the recipe as stated at 225*, try starting with only 20 lit coals, or pour them all in a divot in the corner of your coal basket instead of distributing them all around, I don't know, experiment! I wouldn't start normally with the 40 coals and try and choke it down, that seems like it could lead to bad smoke. Or you could smoke on a kettle or something else that uses less charcoal at a lower temp.
I'm excited to see what you come out with, I've been thinking of curing some bacon myself as soon as I can convince the wife
I think Earnest is really the PBC bacon pro, but our method is to take a full pork belly, trim it/cut it in half, cure it and then hang the halves in the middle of the PBC. Here's a picture of the finished product...
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