Let’s try this again. I tried writing this yesterday but it was turning more into a recipe post and that’s just not what I do. Anyway, let’s talk about the bacon.

The ongoing joke is that when men reach their 30s they either get into smoking meats or collecting World War II memorabilia. I am definitely falling into that stereotype harder and harder as I progress through my 30s — and since I have no interest in the military or war, you can imagine where my fascination now lies. Back in 2017 (six years ago, meaning I would have been 32) I upgraded from a cheap, dinky gas grill to a cheap, dinky Char-Griller barrel-style charcoal grill with the offset firebox attachment. A quick search for this grill on YouTube returns hundreds – maybe even thousands – of barbecue enthusiasts talking about what a shitty grill it is or giving tutorials for how to make a handful of modifications that make the grill better.

True, the built-in thermometer was trash, the air didn’t circulate properly and there were far too many cracks and crevices that allowed heat to escape … But it didn’t matter because I didn’t know what I was doing anyway! Over the next six years I smoked several pork bellies, chicken wings, steaks, burgers, pork chops, salmon and vegetables. It survived two moves, was frequently left out in the rain and was rarely ever cleaned out properly. All that to say, it was time for an upgrade.

Kamado grills are all the rage these days for the home pitmaster. The most popular version is the Big Green Egg – a ceramic Kamado style grill/smoker that has a great reputation but can have a price tag that reaches $5,000 or more. No thanks. Fortunately most of your big-box hardware stores promote the Kamado Joe at around $2,000 and Vision Kamado S-Series for $700, Wal-Mart sells the Expert Grill Kamado for around $250 and Amazon sells the Char-Griller Akorn for about $400. After doing a lot of research, watching a ton of videos and reading hundreds of reviews, I decided to go with the Akorn and I’m so glad I did.

So like I said in a previous post, once I got the Akorn assembled, I went hog wild smoking chicken wings, chicken lollipops and tomahawk ribeyes all in the same week. But I had to get used to the grill and learn its intricacies so that I could knock out my first batch of bacon.

And I had to knock out that first batch of bacon because I had planned on serving it on my next-level cheeseburgers for our first cookout of the year!

You read that right – it’s cookout season again. Let’s get greasy.

In case you didn’t know, bacon comes from pork belly so acquiring a fat belly is the first step. I’m so glad that Costco usually always has pork belly in stock! It’s always a good price, is sold in enormous slabs and – most importantly – is SKINNED. The first pork belly I ever bought came from the meat department at Publix. The belly hadn’t been skinned and I figured I needed to learn. Instead, I nearly destroyed that beautiful slab of pork by hacking away at the skin with a much-too-dull knife. This year I was able to score a 12-pound pork belly from Costco at a steal (like $35).

I got my belly home and immediately cut it in half. I bought the biggest Ziploc bags I could buy and still had to halve this monster just to get it to fit!

To make bacon, pork belly needs to cure for 7-9 days. Here’s the recipe I used for 12 pounds of piggy:

• ⅔ cup kosher salt
• 6 TB ground black pepper
• 4 tsp pink curing salt
• ⅔ cup brown sugar

I fired up my Akorn with a medium amount of lump charcoal topped with applewood chips. After the grill was lit, I put in my heat deflector then laid down a tin pan about ½ full with equal parts water and apple juice. This was new to my process as I’ve historically always used a spray bottle to hit the belly with apple juice throughout the smoke. While this worked just fine, I hated opening the chamber to apply the juice so this made it so that I didn’t have to open it up.

Once I got my grill up to 200 I realized that my giant pork bellies were too big to fit entirely on the cast-iron grate. I anticipated about a 2-3 hour cook time so smoking one right after the other wasn’t the worst situation. I laid down one slab and proceeded to maintain my temperature. 

There are a billion tutorials for how to get – and maintain – your Kamado grill to a steady low-and-slow temperature and I have watched nearly all of them. While I’m getting better, I still lean toward the novice side when it comes to “set it and forget it.” I chased my temperature around more than I’d care to admit but I also did better this time than I ever have so I guess it’s progress.

I had a bonehead moment about an hour into the smoke: the Char-Griller Akorn comes with a wire cooling rack attachment that fits directly onto the cast-iron grates, the surface of which could definitely accommodate my second pork belly slab! GENIUS. So while my intention was to not raise the lid for any reason, I popped it open long enough to attach my cooling rack and slab on the other pork belly.

I was hoping to be able to pull the piggy off the smoke at the two-hour mark but it ended up taking closer to three, which was fine. In fact, it was extra-fine because my second pork belly came up to temperature at the same time as my first due to the higher temperature up in the chamber. That means I could pull all 12 pounds of swine at the same time!

The first time I ever made bacon I was told that it was imperative that you take a slice right off the edge of the pork belly fresh from the smoker just to get a sampling of the sweet, sweet porky goodness you’ve worked so hard on, so I made sure to do just that. I could taste the subtle applewood flavor, the sweetness from that brown sugar and that perfect saltiness provided by the long cure and the pork fat.

I let these babies cool down, wrapped them in plastic wrap and let them spend the night in the fridge again. The next day I assembled my trusty meat slicer and began slicing like a mad freak. Half of the pork belly became thin-sliced bacon, the other half thick.

I won’t be making a full post about my burgers but they were dynamite. We received a meat grinder attachment for our stand-mixer as a wedding gift and I have been chomping at the bit to use it. My burgers were approximately half-and-half top sirloin and ribeye, ground, seasoned, portioned into ⅓-pound meatballs then gently formed into patties. I’d then drop them on the grates over indirect heat with hickory smoke. Once up to temp, they got a sharp-cheddar dressing and omg these burgers, y’all …

And there you have it – the year’s first bacon and the best bacon I’ve both ever made and eaten. I’d later portion the bacon slices out by the pound, wrap them up and get them in the freezer. We have enough bacon to last us the rest of the year, I’d say! But if it doesn’t get that far, keep your judgment to yourself.