^^^ So you put on just the skin? Or pork belly with the skin attached?

Here is a shot at the beginning of the cook. The pork belly chicharron are the 5 "fingers" of meat. There is no skin, the raw meat looks like unsliced bacon.



Just off the smoker


One of the belly pieces sliced open.


Over all, I liked the belly. A lot of the fat rendered, but a fair bit remained. The flavor was excellent, not surprisingly a cross between bacon and rib meat. I do not like excessive fat, so for me, I would probably cut my pieces thinner before smoking to get more fat rendered out. For those that like the fat, the post on pg. 28 of this thread from Tuckerrnr1 for pork burnt ends could easily be made with these. Maybe that is how he did it, I don't know.

quote:

Originally posted by DrDan:
Here is a shot at the beginning of the cook. The pork belly chicharron are the 5 "fingers" of meat. There is no skin, the raw meat looks like unsliced bacon.



Over all, I liked the belly. A lot of the fat rendered, but a fair bit remained. The flavor was excellent, not surprisingly a cross between bacon and rib meat. I do not like excessive fat, so for me, I would probably cut my pieces thinner before smoking to get more fat rendered out. For those that like the fat, the post on pg. 28 of this thread from Tuckerrnr1 for pork burnt ends could easily be made with these. Maybe that is how he did it, I don't know.

When I hear "chicharron", I think of skins primarily.

I only buy skinless pork belly and cure/smoke belly for bacon.

When I smoke belly (non-cured) it is better on the fatty side and much like pulled pork (butt) for sammiches.

^^ and yes, cutting it in cubes, smoking longer to make make crunchy burnt ends is a way to get less fat > delicious, btw.

OK and my contribution for the thread, yesterdays BEEF rib:

Good lord that beef rib looks tasty!

I started curing 43lbs of pork belly a week ago.


Ribs tonight, ham tomorrow, and bacon Friday/Saturday.

Party ribs, I did 3 racks and used Heath Riles garlic Jalapeno on half of them. Smoked with cherry and used my brothers top secret BBQ sauce when they went into the oven. They were excellent.











I smoked a Ham with apricot glaze and used maple wood chips in my PBC for Thanksgiving. This was our contribution to the meal. This was very good and will be definitely making this again.







I cured my bacon for 8 days using coarse salt, coarse pepper, and turbinado sugar. I used 2 large chunks of oak to start the fire, and then added hickory splits throughout the cook, and a few small chunks of apple. It was about 15 degrees here yesterday but it was a great day for smoking. My brother is coming today to help slice and package everything for the freezer.













This really turned out great. Hopefully the whole batch is as good as the sample we cooked.


Got er done, took about 4 hours!


This made 32 ~1 pound packages. I also got about 6 1/2 pound bags of cubed up ends/scraps to add into beans or other dishes.

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Got a little fiesta planned for Thursday. Pulled pork and baked potatoes. Just getting started on the egg.





Pulled at 201°, gonna be a good one.

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