Mr M's New Favorite Toy

What is it? It's not a black mini-frig, it's a smoker.

Mr M has been as giddy as a school boy with a new toy :)

He started out by making a couple batches of jerky.

The first he left in a little long so it was a bit dry and a little crunchy, but it tasted good.

He used a really good cut of meat for the second batch of jerky. Oops. We didn't realize what a good cut it was, but it made really good jerky :)

the color is off because of crappy lighting. it wasn't really this pink.

After trying the jerky, he decided to get adventurous and smoke some bacon. We can buy pork bellies from local forested pigs from our online grocery service, so we ordered a pound of pork belly and got started. It takes a few days, but the results are totally worth it.

Mr M brined the pork bellies for 48 hours, then drained and rinsed the meat. Next, he patted the meat dry and sprinkled it with a peppercorn seasoning. He let it sit for 24 hours, then put it in the smoker at 180* for about 5 hours, using a 50/50 mixture of apple and hickory chips.

Once the meat was smoked, it was finally time to slice it, fry it up, and eat it!

 brined, peppered, and smoked pork belly 

slicing the meat (we don't own a meat slicer, so Mr M had to do it by hand)

frying the bacon

ready to eat with eggs fried in the yummy bacon grease

The bacon goes from frying to burnt in no time flat, so you have to watch it closely as it gets close to being finished.

This bacon was SO GOOD! Seriously, Mr M and I have never tasted bacon with so much flavor. Store bought stuff just doesn't compare. 

I don't think we'll be able to go back to store bought bacon. When I placed our online grocery service order this week, I ordered 5 pounds of pork belly. We'll smoke it all up at once, then slice it, portion it out, and freeze it for later. My mouth is watering just thinking about it as I type :)

Have you ever smoked your own meat?