Recipe please! I have never made bacon and we have a BGE.
here you go --its pretty simple -- one tip when you fry it --fry SLOWLY
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One 2 1/2 pound slab of pork belly (it’s probably not worth it to smoke less than 2 pounds, as it loses some water weight throughout the process)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pink salt (curing salt)*
2 tablespoons maple sugar or packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Open a gallon size Ziploc bag and have it at the ready on the counter. Place the pork belly on a large baking sheet.
Whisk the two salts and the sugar together in a small bowl, then stir in the maple syrup until a wet paste forms. Rub the paste evenly over the pork belly, then place the meat into the Ziploc bag and seal.
Refrigerate the bagged pork belly for a week. The meat will start to self-brine as it releases liquid throughout the process; turn the bag over every other day to keep the brine evenly distributed. You may need to squeeze additional air out of the bag to make sure the meat is in contact with the brine at all times.
Remove the pork belly from the bag, rinse, and dry. Set a metal cooling rack on a sheet pan and place the meat on the rack. Leave uncovered in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
Prepare your smoker according to manufacturer instructions, and hot-smoke the pork belly at 200˚ until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 150?. This can take anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours depending on the size of your slab, so monitor carefully.
Should you not devour your bacon immediately, it will keep in the fridge for about a week and in the freezer for about three months.
*Pink salt, aka curing salt, can be purchased online at The Sausage Maker—just buy Insta-Cure #1 in your desired quantity. It’s sodium nitrite, which inhibits the growth of botulism-causing bacteria in a warm environment. The amounts used in the recipe are small, so you shouldn’t worry about cancer-causing compounds (unless you subsist entirely on a diet of processed foods, in which case, why are you reading this site?). I urge you, if you’re going to smoke your own bacon, PLEASE stick to the recipe for proper food safety.
