Canadian Bacon

We do have smoked loin, I've just never seen it called "bacon". All the smoked loin here is ready to eat. No cooking required.

I polled a hunting forum I am on, it had several Canadians as members.
The ones from the eastern 1/3 of Canada had never heard of it, the ones from the western 2/3 all knew of it even if they had not tasted it.
I make it and have for a number of years, dry cured and cold smoked with hickory or mesquite.
I have tried tenderquick but usually make my own cure using #2 pink salt.
I use equal parts of canning salt and plain cane sugar with black pepper, garlic powder and ground cayenne.
I use 1 tbsp of #2 pink salt per cup of cure and cure 1 day per inch of thickness, plus one more day.
Usually cold smoke it about 6-8 hours.

I am always torn between hickory and mesquite, both are good flavored but different.I can get either here, most groceries have 25-30 lb sacks of cooking chunks for $6-7 , not every day but often. I also have black cherry and river birch here just for going and cutting it.
I go high tech using a 1 lb oval sardine can on the hotplate to hold the wood.;I am making a new smoker now, the 16cu' one will not get over 110' with a 600 watt hot plate, the new one is 6.6 cu' and will have a dual heat plate. 500 and 1000 w so I can have 500, 1000 or 1500 w.
When I get done I shall post a photo of both.

BriCan wrote: