Apple Peppered Deckle Bacon

There once lived a Prince with a ravenous craving for Bacon. His obsession with Bacon went beyond consumption and this baffled many. His subjects called him The Mad Mad Bacon Prince. His Dad was know in the land as the Mad, Mad Pastrami King. This Prince had grown tired of traditional Bacon and always sought out the unique and unusual. A normal person would have been satisfied with just eating all that they desired but the Prince was never content. One day while ascending the tower he stopped motionless midway and cloaked himself in silence while he pondered what might be a new Bacon. He said to himself...Hmm What if? In solitude he stared at the wall while his mind raced and finally like a bolt of lightning and a flash a new Bacon was born. I present you with Apple Peppered Deckle Bacon.

Although I love my Maple Bacon Recipe I found myself either smoking with Hickory or Apple. After smoking with Apple a few times I pondered what it would be like to make an all Apple Bacon. Hmmm....why not an all Apple Bacon? How would one go about making an all Apple Bacon? Rhetorical question obviously but begs to be answered. In my opinion one of the prerequisites to making a great bacon is great ingredients or for that matter any food. To the best of my knowledge you cannot buy Apple Sugar or Syrup. Even if you were able to buy Apple Sugar and Syrup it would contain lots of sugar and other artificial ingredients. 

Day dreaming or ruminating over food is my all time favorite thing to do. I love sitting around either creating new recipes or working through culinary epiphanies. This gastronomical creation has it's challenges but that's the fun part. To go where no one has gone before is well suited for my proclivities. 

Here's the recipe for my Apple Bacon. The Apple Sugar & Apply Syrup recipe can be found HERE.

Here is a pretty pic of the Deckle before I trimmed it up a bit.

This is one of the easiest Bacon recipes you will find on my blog and other sites.

Notes on curing and calculating the percentages. Combine the salt and cure together and apply to Deckle getting it into every nook and cranny. 

Apply the Apple Sugar: again getting it into every nook and cranny. Place the Deckle in a vacuum bag and pour Apple Syrup inside. At first it will appear that you do not have enough Apple Syrup but over the next couple of days the bag will make a brine in it's own natural juices and will mingle with the syrup creating a well distributed liquid. It will cure for about 14-21 days depending on thickness of the Deckle. Every day I will massage the bag and flip. Note: This is the closest thing you will ever get to 100% Apple Bacon. After the curing process I will Cold-Smoke with Apple wood.

All cured and rinsed off. 
I added more Apple Sugar and of course Pepper. It will be cold smoked for 9 hours. Note: I set this in front of a fan for about 3 hours to develop a pellicle. You could also place uncovered in the refrigerator overnight to accomplish the same thing.

All sliced up and ready to cook. I placed each slice between parchment paper. Do you notice the sides of the sliced bacon? That's the dehydrated apple. 

AMAZING BACON!!!

Roasted Garlic & Smoked Pepper Jerky

Another Jerky from  yours truly. I just can't get enough of this stuff. This one is very simple but extremely flavorful. Well...?? That's if you like Garlic.  

 I used 6 lbs of Top Round cut across the grain. This recipe is perfect for that exact amount. Anymore just adjust the recipe. Trim all that fat off. 

Sliced it on my Berkel. I found that 3/8 of an inch was perfect. 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Recipe

1 Cup Worcestershire Sauce 

1 Cup of Soy Sauce

1/2 cup of Brown Sugar

1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ Rub. 

.25% Cure #1

Now the next step is about personal preference. In a Shaker bottle add a percentage of Roasted Garlic Powder or Granulated Roasted Garlic & Smoked Black Pepper. After you get done marinating the meat you will sprinkle this combo on the meat. You will do it on both sides. I used 60% Garlic and 40% Black pepper. 

Notes on Curing and jerky 

Mix all the ingredients together (except the garlic and pepper) and add to the sliced meat. Mix thoroughly. Every twelve hours or so over haul meat. I marinated everything for about 48 hours. 

Place meat on racks and sprinkle on your garlic & pepper combo. Make sure you do both sides. 

Load them into the Dehydrator. I started out at 140ƒ˚for about 3 hours and will finish them at 125ƒ˚ and 110ƒ˚. If you want to pasteurize the meat (Sous-Vide) I would suggest Sous-Vide using Baldwins Tables. This is what I do. Note: my process has evolved over time. This works well with my Excalibur Dehydrator.  I occasionally cold smoke too which is another great technique.  

Grand Slam!!! Outstanding!!!

 

Raspberry Chipotle Jerky

This is my all time favorite Jerky flavor profile. I have played around with similar flavors in the past but this is the first time using Raspberry powder and it should make a huge difference. A small note on my posts.... While writing this the Jerky is not done yet. This is all conjecture. 





This recipe is enough for about 8 lbs or so. 

I used 6 lbs of Top Round cut across the grain.





Notes on Curing and the math

Salt 3%
Cure #1 .25%
Granulated Sugar.75% 
.5% Chipotle Powder (if like use a higher %)
Red Raspberry Jam 510 grams 
CranBerry Raspberry Juice 454 grams



Raspberry Powder 

A picture to show you how precise I like to be. Salt to the left and Chipotle to the right.

Using a Berkel Slicer is really convenient. 

I sliced the meat at 3/16 of an inch. Just a personal preference. Don't slice bigger than 1/4 of an inch.

Combine the salt, cure and Chipotle in a shaker. Apply to meat thoroughly. Apply a little and mix up meat. Keep adding until all gone.

Combine Juice and Jam and mix into meat. Let marinate for 48 hours. Overhaul meat at least twice and possibly more before the elapsed time.  

When the 48 hours have come and gone do the following.

Add a couple of tablespoons of the Raspberry Powder to a shaker can.

Lay out the Jerky on racks and sprinkle on the Powder. Do both sides if you want to really enhance that raspberry flavor.

Load them into the Dehydrator. I started out at 140ƒ˚for about 3 hours and will finish them at 125ƒ˚ and 110ƒ˚. If you want to pasteurize the meat (Sous-Vide) I would suggest Sous-Vide using Baldwins Tables. This is what I do (sometimes LOL).

Review- GRAND SLAM!!!