Any good bacon recommendations?

jermmd · « **Reply #40 on:** 20 Jan 2010, 12:01 am »

George,

I may be wrong about it being Kirkland. My wife thinks it's another brand, maybe Hormel?

ctviggen · « **Reply #41 on:** 20 Jan 2010, 01:21 pm »

I ordered a bacon sampler, hamburgers, and a sausage sampler from Neuske's. I'll report back.

I may go to Costco this Friday/weekend. I'll see if they have bacon there, too.

DaveC113 · « **Reply #42 on:** 20 Jan 2010, 04:03 pm »

I'd recommend trying bacon explosion:

http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/

I've made a variation a couple times that came out good... used thick sliced Applewood Farm bacon, bulk breakfast sausage, glazed the whole thing with real maple syrup, and baked at 235 for a few hours, until it gets to 165 F. Then, I crisp the bacon a little bit under the broiler.

zybar · « **Reply #43 on:** 21 Jan 2010, 12:07 am »

Quote from: ctviggen on 20 Jan 2010, 01:21 pm

I ordered a bacon sampler, hamburgers, and a sausage sampler from Neuske's. I'll report back.

I may go to Costco this Friday/weekend. I'll see if they have bacon there, too.

Ok, I placed my Neuske's order today.

Looking forward to trying the bacon sampler.

George

ctviggen · « **Reply #44 on:** 21 Jan 2010, 01:08 pm »

Mine should be here Saturday. I'm looking forward to grilling some of this and seeing how good it is.

gonefishin · « **Reply #45 on:** 21 Jan 2010, 06:16 pm »

Hey zybar. Bacon really is a treat, and many of the brands and mail order bacon mentioned are a cut above regular supermarket stuff. Another option is homegrown bacon.

Have you got access to a smoker? Making your own bacon is pretty simply and quite rewarding! At an Asian grocery store near my house I can get a whole pork belly (9-12lbs) for $0.89/lb so it certainly is cheap. Plus...more importantly...the flavor! Oh my word.

If your interested you can get Prague Powder #1 at The Spice House (among other places as well). There are some good recipes online and at various forums. If you can...making your own bacon is worth a little bit of trouble.

enjoy your bacon!
dan

some young guy · « **Reply #46 on:** 22 Jan 2010, 12:22 am »

Quote from: gonefishin on 21 Jan 2010, 06:16 pm

Have you got access to a smoker? Making your own bacon is pretty simply and quite rewarding! At an Asian grocery store near my house I can get a whole pork loin (9-12lbs) for $0.89/lb so it certainly is cheap. Plus...more importantly...the flavor! Oh my word.

If your interested you can get Prague Powder #1 at The Spice House (among other places as well). There are some good recipes online and at various forums. If you can...making your own bacon is worth a little bit of trouble.

enjoy your bacon!
dan

Good suggestion... also try pork belly and pork jowels.

gonefishin · « **Reply #47 on:** 22 Jan 2010, 04:43 am »

Quote from: some young guy on 22 Jan 2010, 12:22 am

Good suggestion... also try pork belly and pork jowels.

It's funny how sometimes your fingers will type one thing while your head thinks another thing is written down. I corrected my post to read whole pork belly, instead of loin. Two very different animals. Although...I have seasoned/cured/smoked pork shoulder for tasso ham, delicious!

There's a farm that's a bit of a drive from our house that raises sells Berkshire hogs. They sell whole, partial hogs and also butchered cuts as well...including Berkshire pork jowels

take care all,
dan

ctviggen · « **Reply #48 on:** 22 Jan 2010, 02:27 pm »

Quote from: gonefishin on 21 Jan 2010, 06:16 pm

Hey zybar. Bacon really is a treat, and many of the brands and mail order bacon mentioned are a cut above regular supermarket stuff. Another option is homegrown bacon.

Have you got access to a smoker? Making your own bacon is pretty simply and quite rewarding! At an Asian grocery store near my house I can get a whole pork belly (9-12lbs) for $0.89/lb so it certainly is cheap. Plus...more importantly...the flavor! Oh my word.

If your interested you can get Prague Powder #1 at The Spice House (among other places as well). There are some good recipes online and at various forums. If you can...making your own bacon is worth a little bit of trouble.

enjoy your bacon!
dan

I have a ceramic cooker, but that needs to cook at 200F. (The lowest I can maintain, anyway). I take it that bacon needs to be cold smoked? Is that true?

gonefishin · « **Reply #49 on:** 22 Jan 2010, 07:37 pm »

Quote from: ctviggen on 22 Jan 2010, 02:27 pm

I have a ceramic cooker, but that needs to cook at 200F. (The lowest I can maintain, anyway). I take it that bacon needs to be cold smoked? Is that true?

I've only made bacon one time so far, but I'm hooked. I kept my smoker at 175f. But there are plenty of people at various forums that are smoking their belly at the 200f mark. I smoked mine until it was close to 150f internal temperature.

There's plenty of dry rubs that I've seen on the web and no two have been alike. Doing a search should get you alot of varying recipe's.

Here is what I did...

homemade bacon recipe

1.One 5lb slab of pork belly, rind removed. I need practice making pork rinds, this didn't turn out as good as the bacon
2.1 tsp pink salt (Prague Powder)
3.1/4 cup of salt
4.Generous half cup of maple syrup, honey or brown sugar.

Rub the pink salt into, and all over, the meat (all sides). Next run the regular salt in and slather the honey, maple syrup or brown sugar into the meat as well. Put in a zip-lock bag and set in the fridge for a week, turning once a day.

After a week you can remove it from the bag and rinse off the excess salt. Fry a piece up and taste. If it's too salty you can soak it in cold water for an hour before trying another piece. If it's still too salty soak in cold water for another one hour increment, using a fresh batch of cold water.

You can now dry it off with paper towels and eat it like this, smoke it right away or let it sit on a cooling rack atop a baking sheet in the refrigerator overnight, to form a pellicle.

When it's time to smoke I've seen people recommend bringing the smoker temp up to 150, 175 or 200. If you can't keep your smoker under 225f I wouldn't worry about it. Just take the belly out once the internal temperature has reached 150f. To load the smoker with fuel in my BackWood smoker I just put two pieces of lump, lit it with a torch and then placed two pieces of apple woold on top of the lump

Next you can let the bacon cool down before proceeding. Be cautioned...waiting can be difficult and you may end up with burnt fingers. If this happens simply proceed to lick your fingers of all bacon drippings. This won't help the burns...but it sure will taste good!

After the bacon has cooled one degree (I'm kidding!) some people cut the top layer of fat off. I choose to leave mine on. You can do whatever you feel like. Cut some strips off, fry up...and enjoy

Hmmm...I need to go to the store and get some pork belly's

enjoy the bacon!

dan

ctviggen · « **Reply #50 on:** 25 Jan 2010, 12:13 pm »

Thanks, I'll definitely give that a try this year.

As for the Neuske's, I had the hamburgers, which were OK. My wife didn't like them. I had one of the three versions of sausages, on the other hand, and it was great. I won't have the bacon until next week (or later).

ctviggen · « **Reply #51 on:** 29 Jan 2010, 01:58 am »

I had the pepper bacon, it is by far the best bacon I've ever had. No comparison, even with the non-nitrated bacon I usually buy from the grocery store.

ctviggen · « **Reply #52 on:** 30 Jan 2010, 12:16 pm »

Hmmm...Their bacon has no nitrates/nitrites, but their sausages do. While it's unclear to me how much concern there should be about nitrates, I find it odd that a company like this doesn't add them to bacon but does add them to sausage. Regardless, the sausage is quite tasty, too. But I think I'll be making my own sausage in the future, so that I don't have to eat nitrates.

rollo · « **Reply #53 on:** 30 Jan 2010, 05:04 pm »

Stay with organic then no worry about chemicals, genetic altering and the like. TASTES a hell of a lot better as well. If you are in NYC seek out Empire meat market. They smoke their own on site..

charles

zybar · « **Reply #54 on:** 30 Jan 2010, 05:07 pm »

Quote from: ctviggen on 29 Jan 2010, 01:58 am

I had the pepper bacon, it is by far the best bacon I've ever had. No comparison, even with the non-nitrated bacon I usually buy from the grocery store.

My shipment arrived yesterday and I will be trying the bacon wrapped fillets tonight and the pepper bacon tomorrow morning.

George

zybar · « **Reply #55 on:** 31 Jan 2010, 02:57 pm »

Quote from: zybar on 30 Jan 2010, 05:07 pm

My shipment arrived yesterday and I will be trying the bacon wrapped fillets tonight and the pepper bacon tomorrow morning.

George

So we just finished breakfast and while my wife and I really liked the pepper bacon (my 5 and 8 year olds boys didn't), I don't think I would rate it as highly as Bob. The pepper flavor was mild to medium on first biting into the bacon, but grew stronger and stronger and lingered for quite a bit. The bacon had very little shrinkage and certainly tasted much better than anything I can buy in the local stores.

As for the bacon wrapped beef fillets...I thought they were on par (or slightly better) with the Omaha Steaks products. The beef was tender and flavorful using a simple preparation (salt and pepper, pan fry till crusted, finish cooking in the oven). I definitely would recommend people giving them a try.

George

ctviggen · « **Reply #56 on:** 1 Feb 2010, 10:55 am »

Thanks for the recommendation about the steaks. I didn't know they had them. Unfortunately, I cannot try my other bacon (non-pepper) for a while, at least a week.

ctviggen · « **Reply #57 on:** 2 Feb 2010, 01:10 pm »

By the way, for my pepper bacon review, this review was really about the underlying bacon, without the pepper. I wasn't overly fond of pepper on bacon (though I could see where it might be useful), but I loved the bacon.

Bill@LakeGeorge · « **Reply #58 on:** 3 Feb 2010, 08:35 pm »

I tried the Nueske regular bacon today and it is quite good although a bit much at $10 a pound.

The best bacon I ever had was from honeybakedham.com, unfortunately you can only get it as a add-on to a ham order, it is $13 for 1.5 pounds.

SwedeSound · « **Reply #59 on:** 3 Feb 2010, 09:01 pm »

Isn't "good bacon" redundant?

Sure, some bacon's better than other bacon. I've had underdone bacon, overdone bacon, thick bacon, thin bacon. But I don't think I've ever had bad bacon. What can I say? I dig pig.