Darko (AK1), whom I’ve known for years, was particularly inspiring with the description of his eastern-European method, which couples a long, cold smoke with dry-aging of the salt-cured bacon for amazing aroma and flavour. Since this was my first time making bacon of any kind from pork belly, I naturally sought assistance and guidance from several trusted friends and acquaintances here and elsewhere, and they all have my sincere appreciation. This ingredient was completely out of my reach just a few short years ago, but thanks to online sources such as Amazon, I was able to obtain this wonderful product with little trouble, and highly recommend that you do the same.

It also imparts a tantalising, caramelised depth that is hard to describe, yet easily appreciated for its subtlety. Maple sugar is the perfect medium by which to achieve this goal in that it provides just enough sweetness to balance the salt that is in the bacon, without overpowering the entire profile. This method will teach you to produce a maple-cured, cold-smoked, dry-aged bacon that will be rich, deep and savory, without the cloying sweetness of the “maple bacon” that is found in the grocery stores. This will necessitate a little extra time and attention to detail, but the results are very much worth it. All that is needed is the patience to “do things right ” by using that phrase, I mean that if you want bacon that has that wonderful, deep-smoked, olde-tyme aroma and flavour, then you need to use a method that will achieve the desired result. I found this to be very true recently as I set out to learn this art, and was amazed at how little effort it took to produce such wonderful end product.

One truth that is nearly universal is that once you cure and smoke your own bacon, you will never be satisfied with “store-bought” bacon again. What if I told you that you can cure and smoke your own bacon at home? If you are reading this, then I will assume that you feel somewhat the same, and invite you to consider that there is a whole new world open to you: It is inconceivable to me that there are people out there who do not think much of bacon in fact, to me, hating bacon is almost as big a sin as hating America. Looking for the best turkey bacon or the best Canadian bacon? Don’t worry we ranked those, too.I love bacon. In the end, we found the eight best bacon brands that will take any BLT, breakfast plate, or bacon-wrapped scallop from good to great.

Bacon fat tastes amazing, but a single meal shouldn’t send you to the hospital with chest pain. And, ideally, the strips had more meat than fat. We looked for strips with the correct balance of saltiness and sweetness (that means more saltiness than sweetness). In both taste tests, the first order of business was determining what separates the merely good bacon brands from the certifiably best bacon brands. It’s salty, porky, smoky, and, in the words of the great King Curtis, “Bacon is good for me.”īut what we set out to do over the course of two separate taste tests is to find the best bacon at the grocery store. They turn love of bacon into a personality trait. They buy bacon lip balm and bacon bandages. And people don’t just like bacon-they worship bacon. Even the worst bacon bottoms out in “good” territory. I know what you’re thinking and, yes, it’s true: All bacon is good. The best bacon is meaty, smoky, and the perfect balance of sweet and salty.

Wholefoods black forest bacon