wittdog
Master Chef
I would almost rather be Puff. At least he got drunk and didn’t fire up his Brisket. I’m getting drunk and trying something new. To disastrous results. I hope that I can appease the BBQ gods and save my bacon literally. It started innocently enough. My wife was taking the dynamic duo to an Easter party and Egg hunt which mint that I was going to be home alone. One would think that this would be any ideal time for the wittdog to play with his latest toy and to get reacquainted with his long lost Uncle Jack. So without further ado I hopped into the family grocery getter and drove of f to that orange store and grabbed a bag of ice along the way. I decided to put a couple of cinderblocks inside Buford and run a dowel between them and feed him some Bacon and Canadian Bacon that has been brining for the last 4 days.. Now this is where I varied from my usual MO. As I have posted in the past I have always used my Electric smoker for this type of smoking. (The electric is made by THE SAUSAGE MAKER right here in Buffalo). Now you purists and I am one of them when it comes to Q might want to scoff at the notion of an Electric smoker. I would never use electric for Q but IMO when you are smoking cured meats you are not Qing you are doing something akin to cold smoking. This is also a misnomer because cold smoking usually occurs at temp around 90*. But for the sake of this post I will call what I was attempting to do Smoking which is done at temps of 120*145*165*. Enough schooling back to the subject at hand.
My main concern was trying to keep a low enough temp in the chamber. I thought that if I had a small enough fire and had the damper closed the charcoal would smolder and I could keep a low enough temp. Well doom on me! First I couldn’t get the temp to below 200*. Which I take reasonability for, new pit still learning the ins and out’s of it. What I didn’t take into account was the temp variation inside the chamber from top to bottom. I had the bacon on bacon hooks (that way you get a nice even color all the way around) that’s why I removed the cooking rack and instated the cinder block and dowel. Now you might be wondering if there is a great deal of variation between the top of the camber and where the cooking surface is or might already know the answer because you are a BBQ guru. Well let me tell you . There is a huge variation, the tops of my bacon were turning a beautiful brownish red Smokey color, the middle and bottom section was what a would call an Alien 51 grey color. So after a little bit of brain juice (JD and coke for color) I decided to try to save my bacon and placed it in my Electric Smoker and smoke it like I normally do. Oh if I haven’t mentioned it yet the electric is very well insulated and the temp is pretty constant throat. So my friends that is where I am now, I will update and might even post picks If ya’ll need a laugh after spending another Holiday with the In-laws. If all else fails I’ll roll it in cornmeal and serve it to the Outlaws tomorrow or give it to Mikey he’ll eat anything. I’m going to keep drinking and keep smoking I’ll let you know how it came out. If anyone has any experience smoking bacon on a BBQ rig I’d like to hear about it. If I try this again I think I’ll leave the cooking surface in Buford
My main concern was trying to keep a low enough temp in the chamber. I thought that if I had a small enough fire and had the damper closed the charcoal would smolder and I could keep a low enough temp. Well doom on me! First I couldn’t get the temp to below 200*. Which I take reasonability for, new pit still learning the ins and out’s of it. What I didn’t take into account was the temp variation inside the chamber from top to bottom. I had the bacon on bacon hooks (that way you get a nice even color all the way around) that’s why I removed the cooking rack and instated the cinder block and dowel. Now you might be wondering if there is a great deal of variation between the top of the camber and where the cooking surface is or might already know the answer because you are a BBQ guru. Well let me tell you . There is a huge variation, the tops of my bacon were turning a beautiful brownish red Smokey color, the middle and bottom section was what a would call an Alien 51 grey color. So after a little bit of brain juice (JD and coke for color) I decided to try to save my bacon and placed it in my Electric Smoker and smoke it like I normally do. Oh if I haven’t mentioned it yet the electric is very well insulated and the temp is pretty constant throat. So my friends that is where I am now, I will update and might even post picks If ya’ll need a laugh after spending another Holiday with the In-laws. If all else fails I’ll roll it in cornmeal and serve it to the Outlaws tomorrow or give it to Mikey he’ll eat anything. I’m going to keep drinking and keep smoking I’ll let you know how it came out. If anyone has any experience smoking bacon on a BBQ rig I’d like to hear about it. If I try this again I think I’ll leave the cooking surface in Buford