Picked up a couple of packages of pork tenderloins and bacon at Costco a couple of days ago so I thought it was time to give this a try. After a lot of research and contemplating, I decided to use thin bacon, season, sous vide at 140°, cool for 24 hours and smoke at 325-350° until bacon is crisp and/or IT is 136-138°. My thinking was that if the bacon crisp before the IT reached the desired temperature that I could always lower the pit temperature to prevent the bacon from burning.
Yesterday afternoon around 2:00 my wife asked what’s for dinner and since I’m the chief cook and bottle washer, and hadn’t given supper much thought, I decided to do the pork tenderloin thing with bacon. I hurried up and prepared the loin/bacon and got it into the sous vide. Since I didn’t have 24 hours for cool, I put it into the freezer for an hour. The loin IT had only gotten down to 93° but I thought that I’d give it a try anyway. All went well except that the bacon did not get crisp enough for my wife. I think starting with an IT of 34 would have solved that problem.
Prior to smoking, I basted it with maple syrup and the resulting flavor was delicious. Pictures next time.
