Name: Smoking Fancy Cured Bacon
Ingredients: fancy sugar cured bacon; water

Smoking Fancy Cured Bacon

Ingredients

fancy sugar cured bacon
water

Directions

Prepare

Soak the bacon in water for no more than 1 hour.
Hang the bacon on trees or trolleys and air-dry for 6 hours.

Smoke and cool

Place the bacon in the smokehouse at a controlled temperature of 110°F to 115°F.
Smoke the bacon for the maximum time at 110°F until the desired color is achieved.
Remove the bacon from the smokehouse and allow it to cool.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Fancy sugar cured bacon: Is the main product being smoked, so its curing and surface drying set the final flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Smoke at a controlled 110°F to 115°F. Smoking at a steady low temperature lets smoke flavour and colour develop slowly while the fat renders only slightly. Running hotter can soften or melt the fat and cook the meat unevenly, so the bacon can lose its texture and sliceability.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.