The last bacon of the month

the Kolozsvari bacon was pretty unique. It came in slab form and I was glad I have the slicer to get even strips. It was really firm and had a good layer of smoke on it. The aroma before cooking was strange. Seemed spicy and well strange. Seems there is paprika and garlic in there. The pieces were pretty small and cooked up well. The flavor is unique. I liked it, but it seems strange too. Not sure how well I like it actually.

I have severely cut my bacon intake. I want to fit in that bikini by July.

This is the guy who runs the grateful palate personal brand of bacon. Oh man. It is another uber smoked bacon. Through the sealed package it smells like a burning house. Opened the package and my nose hairs started tingling. Theresa walked into the kitchen when I was frying some pieces up and she was startled. Seems when bacon is really smoky like that it becomes translucent. It was a bit fatty and thinly sliced, but crisped up really good. The smoke flavor is very intense and is more of an aftertaste. The fat was delicious like little flavor bombs. The meat was perfect and the salt was just right. Did not notice the brown sugar much.

The last package, #12 showed up. It is some strange slab bacon. Good thing I got my slicer

Vande Rose bacon showed up and I was pretty excited to test it out, but with the kitchen remodel it was going to have to wait till we could cook again. I fried some up for our mac and cheese and it was a very decent bacon. It was a bit of a bummer for it to only be 12 ounces of bacon instead of the pretty standard 1 pound. It was cut very thick and had a slight smoked smell. Cooked beautifully and had a very rich flavor of pork. If this was sold around these parts i would buy it frequently.

When I saw dry cured I got all excited. It was not to smoky, but it was thick cut and firm. The taste was really clean and hammy. Nothing to outstanding, but very decent and high quality.

Carlton Farms

Oscar’s is a rather tame bacon that is very well made. Just the right amount or flavor and a good quality piece of meat. I could smell a bit of smoke, but the main aroma was like a well cured ham. It was sliced very thin and cooked up crisp.

Took me a while to get around to this one with all the bacon I made and such. Fried up a few pieces to top my baked potato and wow that is a really strange kind of goodness. Bacon goes good with everything, but garlic? Well it had a really garlic aroma and you could see cloves jammed in there. You can see the holes where it was in my pics. Was not too intense and the bacon itself was not to smoky, but really good. The flavor was intense where it had touched the garlic, but still noticable on the other parts. Unique as heck.

Nodine’s 10 clove garlic bacon

Edwards apple cinnamon bacon is a different animal. It is apple flavored which is kinda ewwww….. The aroma was not too smoky, but you could smell the cinnamon and fake apple. It was dry cured, but not too powerful bacon wise. Sliced up pretty thin.

I got distracted and overcooked it a bit. The flavor was nothing special. It was kind of strange actually. Nothing to rave over.

Cottage bacon is kind of a faker. Not really bacon, but close. It is made from pork shoulder. Swiss meat and sausage company is out of Missouri.

The pieces were pretty fatty with little to no smoke aroma or flavor. Large pieces of pork were held together with hunks of stringy fat. The pork was delicious tasting, but I kinda want more from a bacon of the month club. Still gonna eat it cuz it is good, but this is no Scotts bacon.

I am never brushing my teeth again. Seriously this is the winner and I need not try the rest.
Here is what I know about it:

(paraphrasing here)
Cured in only brown sugar and salt for two weeks (no nitrates or nirtites at all)
Can be pink to nut brown
cold smoked for 4-7 days till the color is right
Can be very salty
a salty, firm, and hammy texture

Scott Hams has a cool story, and amazing bacon. Check that pic above. I went a bit crisp, but you can see the salt on it. The smoke smell leaked right through the bag. It had the uber oiliness to it like Loveless Cafe bacon. It seems to be a thing with really smoked bacon. No nitrates means it will be missing that flavor and color, but I think it made it taste so awesome. It fried up without much shrinkage. The smoke aroma burned the eyes. We did 8 pieces for a breftest for dinner and the grease left behind was minimal.

I really do not know how to describe the flavor. I would almost reference boobs. It is that good. Theresa could not handle the saltiness or smoke. The salt bite hits hard and is followed by a smoke on top of a mix of ham and bacon. I think that is what bacon actually tastes like when there are no nitrates. It had a roller coaster of flavor. I think I have said that before, but it is so true for this. Salt, smoke, fat, and finished by a dense pork. It is the uber dark chocolate of bacon. Just wow.

In the pic above you can see how lean it is and the dark color.
I still have 8 more months worth of bacon to go, but I know I will buy this again and again.
Seems it is much cheaper from their site than grateful palate.

So I have been saving one of each two pounds I get for the ultimate bacon party in about 8 months. Of course I will need some help eating it and I hope some of yall will help.

EDIT: Just want to say a bit about really good quality bacon.
These folks are making bacon the old way. Dry cure is so hard to come by. Cold smoking for 4-7 days is absolutely amazing and so awesome. If you see their story on their site it kinda splains it.

We now have one full time employee and 6-8 part time employees. but as you can see we are a very small business.

This is the stuff that folks keep secret. It is such a cut above any mass produced product. I feel like I got it from some guy who lives in remote mountains and evading some sort of tax. Sliced gold it is.

Braunfels seems pretty cool. They hand trim their bacon to increase the meat to fat ratio and smoke for 8 hours. I did some googling while it sat in the fridge waiting for weekend breakfast. There was not too much out there actually. One guy said it is really salty so I was stoked. It pretty much failed to wow me in any way though. Nothing bad about it, but the smoke is light and the flavor is really tame.

We ended up testing it with some sammiches. I ended up cooking a few pieces of Nueske’s to get a bit of bacon flavor in there.