Sous vide imitation bacon

[smokinbubba]

Anybody tried this? Im on hour 8 in the oven. Thats crazy. Now i know why i do my sausage in water! I wanna go to bed.

[smokinbubba]

Noone?? Guess i will have to do a test batch then. Oh darn

[Jonathon]

smokinbubba Nope, never with bacon but I have done it with pork butts and it works really well there. I’d suggest trying it IF you have a vac bag big enough to fit it. If you do it without a vac bag I’d worry about how much flavor and fat will be cleared off it. Now, if you still at 128 or something so it doesn’t get hot enough to render the fat I would assume you are okay.

[smokinbubba]

Definitely in a bag since there is no casing. Do you think 170 would render out fat? I always keep a smoker below 180f just for that reason with sausage.

[Jonathon]

smokinbubba Yeah 170 would render it almost for sure. So when we smoke bacon we cook it just until the internal temp is 138. This has us past any worries for a cured meat and it is going to be finished on a pan or griddle so taking it beyond that can be counter productive. I’d set my sous vide around 138-140 and keep an eye on it. Maybe I need to order abellie and try this?

[smokinbubba]

OK, now I’m really confused. I understand that belly’s are cold smoked. Been there, done that, years ago. I thought imitation bacon was hot smoked to 160f with a smoker temp of 175.
That’s why I thought a sous vide at 175 would not render.