Pretty sure it helps with smoke at any temperature.

The color is wonderful...But it is way to much...I gotta go back to just warm smoking em in the Daniel Boone!

Bentley, curious as why you think the color is too much? I think it looks great. Plus when you slice it, your not going to see much of it.

Again, I am way to cryptic and think I am concise!

Color has nothing to do with it...to much smoke, smells like you fell into a pile of wood ash!  But as you stated, should be mitigated when sliced and cooked!

Ok.   I understand, it's the smokiness. More color, more smoke.

I cold smoke my bacon for up to 30 hrs over several days. When I open a package, the smoke smell is obvious. But cooking does diminish it considerably. 

Looking forward to your opinions on the two methods.

Curing the belly for smoking on the Product Review Vertical.  I saw in another thread a slight discussion on possible vac sealing for curing a belly.  Though why not see if there is any difference!

Way to go, Bentley! I was curious about a vacseal cure but knew going into it that I would make a mess of things in the process. And I'm sort of anal about things like that and I wanted to be sure to get the cure on evenly, which was hard enough using zip lock. Looks like you did a great job! Mad skillz!

Thanks for the reminder to go turn these...although I am going to assume it mean nothing in the vac sealed one.

The pictures don't really show it very well, but much more liquid in the vac sealed then the ziplock.  Maybe it will be some valuable data!

The Vac sealed is on the right.  Obviously a different color, my assumption would be no way for it to be oxidized?  2nd thing I noticed is the zip lock belly had no liquid left in it.  I do not think It drained out in fridge, that would be my only guess.  Will dry and then smoke when the Vertical gets here!

I did slice off a small piece of each and fry.  I now know I am a 3% salt person and not a 2% and I might go to 175ppm on cure as opposed to 156ppm.