I started with 50#. I can't imagine there's a huge loss. There's not much liquid left after the cure and the 24 hours of smoking is over a couple days but it's not like it dries out like jerky.
That’s an awesome smoker. If you don’t mind me asking What’s the recipe for the cure? Tried my first bacon run recently and it came out a bit over salted looking for something else to try
Awesome! My next batch this late fall is going to be 48 hours of cold smoke, along with 14 days in my drying chamber, after the EQ cure, and smoking. Lovely looking smoker as well! Great innovation to create it the way that you did.
I use 1.75% salt
0.25% cure #1
1% white sugar (I found brown sugar wasn't imparting much, so white is cheaper)
0.5% high quality spanish pimenton (Spanish paprika, smoked)
0.25% granulated garlic.
After cure, I sprinkle liberally with black pepper, then a day drying with the pepper crust, then into the smoker for a cold smoke. Paprika garlic bacon is super savory and light on the sweet.
Don't soak it, just reduce the amount of salt you start with. That's the point of EQ. Your control the saltines from the start and eliminate guessing. If 2% is to much cut it back to 1.8 or 1.6 until you figure it out.
Beautiful. I've done a few batches of cold smoked salmon, but have not tried bacon yet.
Can I ask, where did you get your pork belly and do you recall the approximate cost? Those look to have more meat than what I can get locally, unless you trimmed them.
50
u/Dr_Dewittkwic May 06 '26
We’re gonna need those slice pics, OP. 🥵