Bacon, Bacon, Bacon!

I am so excited about making beef bacon.  I checked the meat tonight.  It was smashed into the bottom of my jar.  I picked it up and swished it around.  It has a couple darker spots.  I am thinking its pepper corn mashed to it.  It smells fine.  Yeah!!!  I am planning on smoking Wednesday, or Thursday.  I was really excited to remember that my Food City 10 mins. away carried the Full Circle lump coal.  I have 1 bag of Earth Fare brand lump coal.  I wanted to have a second bag on hand just in case.  The smoking part is 200 degrees until the meat reaches 160 degrees.  I also got 2 bags of Full Circle Hickory Chips at Food City.  Yeah!  I think the stores are coming around with the natural food movement!  I am so excited!!! 

My smoker:  We had a Chargriller with smoker box that we used a lot in AZ, but when we moved it wouldn't fit onto the truck, so we bought a new one at Lowe's after we got to TN.  We kept the rotisserie from the old grill.  I ordered another smoker box for the new grill 2 weeks ago.  My dh put it on last weekend, so now we are set to smoke beef bacon!  I am looking forward to smoking up and smelling up our whole neighborhood!  :-)  My neighbor hates me, so this will probably make her really happy.  I think I want to smoke in the middle of the backyard, so the smoke wafts right onto her back porch!  Eat your heart out!!  :-)  Drool all you want!  It needs to smoke for at least 3 hours!  Can't you just smell it????  :-)

My Beef is at the Butcher!

Just got off the phone with my butcher.  I am nervious!  The cow is already there!  Yikes!  dh called a bit ago to say that the cow was going today.  My butcher is awesome.  He asked why it was there already.  I said I didn't know.  I was teasing in asking, Am I suppose to come get it?  lol  :-)  Any way he's going to go ahead and kill it because he realizes that I don't want it to have any grain.  Yikes again!  Glad he thought about it.  He said he doesn't kill until Thursday.  Sure hope this isn't going to cost me extra. 

We discussed how do I want it cut.  He said standard?  What is standard?  He doesn't have a fax machine or any way to get me the sheet.  I told him I'll get over there tomorrow.  This is going to be interesting!  Deep breath....soooo...  I did tell him I wanted the oxtails, and liver.  Ok there...  We discussed the brisket.  We determined that he will let it age a week to 12 days, cut it up, and then I will pick up the brisket fresh to cure.  Then pick up the rest of the meat in a couple days so it has a chance to freeze.  I did know that they flash freeze faster than my home freezer for that amount of meat.  OK...  so here we go!  I need to figure out what to put in the cure.  BTW he hasn't had anyone ask to cure there brisket before.  Weird?  Thats what you use to make corn beef!  ????  I plan to smoke some of the cured brisket to use as bacon.  Oh, I need a slicer!

I want to add that he is also willing to process my beef first of the day on the equipment that was cleaned the night before.  Tomorrow I will discuss with him further to be sure its rinsed well with water.  He has a tenderizer for the cube steak, and of course the grinder.  I am sure there is a saw as well.  Deep breath...hopefully all will turn out well.  I had some grass feed beef that he had processed before, and had no problems with it, so I am sure everything will turn out wonderful!!  :-)   Eek!  Anxiety is going to set in and I'm not going to be able to sleep until this is over with!  :-)