I’ve been buying whole pork loins lately: they come with a lovely pork loin for about two thirds and sirloin for the last third.  The loin is very nice but the sirloin on these pieces is jagged and just isn’t pretty, so I cut it off.  I find this cut works wonderfully for two applications: my and a slow roast smoked on my big green egg.

The front roast is my smoked slow roasted sirloin and in the rear is the cured and smoked sirloin.  The sirloin is a …

I took advantage of the freezing weather to cold smoke my latest batch of bacon.  Until now I’ve been hot smoking it: working with a temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit in my Big Green Egg I smoked the bacon for about four hours until it’s internal temperature reached 150 degrees.
With the Weber Smokey Mountain I can maintain smoke indefinitely and keep the bacon’s internal temperature to around 100 degrees.  I smoked this batch with sugar maple charcoal and maple chunks for six hours.

The texture of the finished product was a …

After much trial and error over the last year I’ve settled on a standard cure for smoked bacon.  I started with the smoked bacon recipe from Charcuterie and made my variations from there.  I like a sweeter bacon but also want the bite of the pepper.  I enjoy the dark syrup more than the brown sugar, but I’m Canadian and have easy access to excellent pure maple syrup.  A nice fatty pork loin works just as well as a belly if you want an English cut bacon.

5 lb pork belly (or loin)
1/4 …