Do you need to fry/bake it after smoking or is it ready to eat?

Since it's smoked to 150 degrees, it's ready to eat - hot or cold. I only smoked at about 225 for a couple hours, so t's still very fatty. If you want to render more of the fat out, it needs round in a pan.

Straight out of the smoker, it's meaty and has that awesome bacon flavor, but more the texture of a piece of steak. After it's cooled, it's more like traditional bacon.

I'll be oven frying some of it this morning for breakfast, so I'll report back then.

wellll... we're waiting

GODDAMN YOU FMB!!!!

We HAVE to know!

Sorry. I've been in a bacon coma. Out of the oven, absolutely fantastic. The fat rendered really well. I don't care for super crispy bacon, and being thick cut it came out meaty and crispy on the outside. Really just about perfect.

I also used some of the slab to make lardons for some parmesan pasta... holy crap, that was like manna from heaven.

Damnit where are the pictures?

Round 2 was better than the first. Nailed the curing liquid this time, not quite as sweet (though I think the maple sugar is wasted here), the saltiness comes through better, and hickory wood is a better smoke for this than cherry.

I also roasted some in the oven for unsmoked bacon. It's good, but isn't as good to just eat outright; however, it will probably work better in recipes where you don't want that smokiness (like carbonara in place of pancetta).

http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/1838/img4284h.jpg

Just bought 2 slabs, plan on starting the cure on Saturday. Got the pink salt coming. FMB, can you recommend 2 different curing solutions? I was initially going to just cure them both in the salt, then hit one with a pork rub and leave one plain (maybe some black pepper), then smoke both with apple wood. But I see you had a fancy cure mixture...care to elaborate on it a little?
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If you've got the freezer space, I'd freeze one of the slabs. You'll learn some things on the first one that you can put to use on the second. And because of the fat content, pork belly freezes really well.

Let me pull out my instructions when I get home. But it was Diamond Kosher salt (not Morton's), cracked peppercorns, some fresh thyme, some maple sugar, pink salt... pretty basic, but darn tasty.

I would also highly recommend skinning the belly BEFORE you cure it.

Well its already frozen so that would be easy, and by the quick look I got at it I would say its already skinned. Will look closer when I get home. The problem with only doing 1 slab is that my dads smoker is fairly good sized. I'd hate to go through all that for 1 slab. But I'd also hate to have 2 ruined slabs...is it easy to ruin? Were bacon noobs, but not overall rubes or anything.
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FMB,
Very nice. You spoke of cherry not working. I do a blend of 3 parts pecan, 1 part hickory, 1 part sweet wood (apple, cherry).
It works great for me.

Ang

Not that the cherry wasn't good. Just that I thought the hickory was better. I generally do a 50/50 split hickory and apple or cherry.

yep, gonna have to skin It
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You'll need to adjust for the weight of your belly, but this was mine:

1 c. maple sugar (do not use white), could sub brown, but I'd use less of it
1/2 c. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
1 Tbsp cracked peppercorns
2 tsp. minced fresh thyme
3/4 tsp. pink salt
1 bay leaf crumbled
4 lb. pork belly, skinned

Everything can be modified, except the pink salt. It's important to keep that ratio so the curing salt does it's job properly.

It'll take 7-10 days to cure, and you'll need to flip it daily. Mine have taken right at 7 days. I smoked mine until it hit 150, then I took it out.