Makin Bacon

Have the ingredients for a batch of cottage bacon(buckboard, butt bacon, many other names). Will be making it later this week.

I use an entire boned shoulder that I butterflied out a bit to flatten it.

5 days into a cottage bacon cure! Oct 11 or 12 I smoke it, then fridge overnight, then slice

After a 3 day fridge rest after smoking, firms it up for slicing. Pardon the messy stove, I just finished canning tomato sauce and made a mess!


And sliced and portioned into sandwich sizes. Cottage bacon is a cross between a ham and bacon in flavor. This was from a locally raised hog and was leaner than I would like.

I fried up that pile of scraps for a snack, good stuff! I have 2 more pork roasts waiting at the butchers to turn into cottage bacon. Cooler temps help keep the Traeger temps down on smoke setting. I averaged 145f the entire smoke.

Looks good! Slices of toast, mayo, tomato...

Butterfly the bone out of a pork butt so it is about 3 inches thick all the way across(can be cut into 2 pieces for easier handling), the I used a commercial bacon cure from High Mountain Jerkey... not much to it. I put the butt in a gallon vacuum bag, dumped in the cure(next time I am adding a bit of homey or maple syrup) and massaged it onto all the meat sides by moving the bag around(why get your fingers dirty!) then I vacuum sealed the bag and into the fridge to cure for 10-14 days. I pulled it from the bag, brushed off extra cure, let it air dry until the surface felt tacky and then onto the Traeger to smoke until it reached 135 internal(145 is better, I ran out of daylight). Let it rest in the fridge overnight to firm up then slice.

If you are doing your own cure there are MANY recipes available and I would not skip the curing salt because it prevents botulism!