Help me with my Belly!

So a friend of mine heard me talking about my BG Egg and all the stuff it can do.  Smoking in particular. So for Christmas I get a Bacon smoking "kit"!

Some company called Hot Smoked that does a packaged kit that has some oak dust for cold smoking with a tray and a pound package of sodium nitrate 0.6%, potassium nitrate 0.6%, and salt.  Instructions say to add your own brown sugar and other spices (pepper or what not...) and then rub and cure for 4 days, wash & dry on the 5th and then smoke on the 6th.

I'm not covering all the details above but is it really this simple?  Anybody got any advice or things to watch out for when doing this?

I need a recommendation on a meat slicer too!  Don't have one of those yet.

BACON BACON BACON......can't say that enough.

That's funny... the company is called hot smoked but the kit is for cold smoking??

FWIW, I prefer cold-smoking my bacon as well. Most people hot-smoke because it is easier. Cold smoked gives a better look and doesn't cook out all the grease. That being said, you'll have a lot more grease to deal with when cooking the final product then.

Making bacon really is that easy but it's hard to say if those directions are "good & safe" without reading them all. I recommend you double check the ratios of curing salts they recommend with the generally regarded safe levels. And read up to make sure the directions also closely match what most people do...

Sorry for such a generalized answer, I haven't made bacon in several years...

I don't know exactly how they do it but we have an Amish family raise and butcher a hog for us each year.
I do know that they brine the bacon for 5 or 6 days then put it in their smokehouse for a day.
It is the best bacon I've ever had!

Yes Bacon is as easy as it sounds. Don't over do the cure, I did on my first run and the bacon was almost uneatable, salvaged it by giving it an overnight soak to pull out some salt. I cut my bellies into 3-4 chunks to make handling easier. Keep the temp down on the smoker, I put a pan of ice water in my Bradley, your looking to smoke the bacon not cook it. 140* internal temp if I recall. Fry up a strip after drying to get an idea of your salt level.
I don't know what your instructions say about drying times, but after curing, I rinse mine, then let it rest overnight uncovered in the frige. The surface gets tacky, which helps the smoke "penetrate/stick" better.
The hardest part for me is making sure everything is timed right. Don't start the cure thinking that in a week I'll make bacon, go at it the other way. "I'm going to smoke on the 27th so I must start cure on the 20th'
I use a nice semi-flex 6" blade to slice my bacon, once its chilled down it slices easier. (I don't like it super thin either.) If you don't have knife skills now, you will later.
A longer blade makes thin even slicing easier.
I leave the skin on while smoking, you can leave it on the slices for consumption of remove it before you slice, try it both ways.
Don't throw the skin away!!! Slice it 3/4" and bake it, Pork Rinds!
Look up "homemade country bacon" Made with the pork "butt" or sholder. Made the same as slab bacon but more ham like. Good stuff.
ETA; Skip the "kit" next time, sounds to me like you bought an expensive bag of Morton "Tender Quick" and some oak dust. Buy the Tender Quick at your supermarket, its right by the table salt.
Might ask the butcher to slice it for you, but I know I can't do it for a customer. Code reasons.

Look at a maze n products smoker trays.

Green eggs suck at low and slow. People fight it and do all sorts of heroics but you can't make a lot of smoke over a long period of time AND keep the temp down. Most people settle and smoke their pork at 225-275 with limited smoke production

In my opinion, a good low temp smoker is poorly insulated, lots of flow, easy to feed wood, and easy to control low temps.

For cold smoking I use no fuel and use an Amazen tube with pellets. Light one end and they will smolder for hours while putting out a lot of smoke.

I use a green egg as well as a propanr fired cabinet smoker.