buckboard bacon

Intro to Buckboard Bacon

In Bacon by Mark MaskerLeave a Comment

Cheap bastard that I am, I made buckboard bacon for the first time over the holidays because pork shoulder and butt are much cheaper than pork belly around here. The process I used is exactly the same as the one I use for making bacon out of belly, only at .99 a lb for pork butt versus $2.75-5.00 for pork belly.

buckboard bacon

I dry cured my buckboard bacon in maple sugar, kosher salt, and Morton’s Tender Quick. Here we see our victim all rubbed down and ready to cure.

I also didn’t have to deal with slicing off the skin, although I did have to trim the pork butt first. No, that’s not a euphemism.
buckboard bacon

After hot smoking it my Masterbuilt 30 at 225 F for three hours.

For as much as I like having the extra savings to spend on motorcycles, strippers and whisky, meat prices aren’t the biggest difference between the two bacon types.
buckboard bacon

I let ’em cool to room temp, then let the buckboard bacon hunks sit in the fridge overnight so the flavors could meld.

Normal American-style bacon has these long striations of yummy fat layers alternating between other layers of meat.
buckboard bacon

Buckboard bacon after slicing on my Cabela’s meat slicer. If you plan on doing your own bacon regularly, a good meat slicer is a must-have.

Its buckboard cousin runs leaner than belly bacon although not as lean as what we here in the US call Canadian bacon. It’s a happy medium between the two.

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Mark Masker

Managing Editor | Mark is a freelance journalist based out of Los Angeles. He’s our Do-It-Yourself specialist, and happily agrees to try pretty much every twisted project we come up with.

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