 Meat boy is back. Today we are making some bacon, so let's get started. Today I have some pork belly. You could do this with beef belly as well. We have both available on Frankie Syringe Meat and when you have a really high quality pork it almost does look like beef. You know the meat is much darker. So all we need is salt and a sweetener. I'm using maple syrup today. You could use raw honey. But since this is going to be cooked I don't really care. I really like the flavor of this. It gives it a breakfast vibe. If you haven't had legitimate maple syrup really good stuff. In regards to ratio you want approximately 2% salt and 1% sweetener. So we would put this pork belly on a scale, weigh it, you know take the percentages of that and then put it on it. I don't really like doing that. I just wing it. It always turns out fine. So just take the pork belly. Ideally not in plastic but I don't have anything else right now. I'm going to put a layer of salt over the belly. 2% salt looks like a thin layer over the entire belly. And then I'm going to put maple syrup. The amount of maple syrup I'm putting is probably closer to 4% or 5% of the weight. I kind of like how it turns out like that. So that 2% salt and 1% sweetener ratio is a traditional bacon. Obviously you can deviate quite a bit as I'm doing here. I'm just going to rub this in keeping everything in the bag so I don't make any mess outside of the bag. And this is a lot of maple syrup so it's going to be a bit on the sweeter side. Now this is ready to go in the fridge. I'm going to double bag this just in case. So we'll flip this over every day for 3 to 4 days and then we'll be ready to smoke it. You could go longer. I've seen people cure this for a week, 2 weeks but then it really starts drying out and getting hard. It's been a couple of days. A lot of maple syrup in here still. After several days of curing the flavors have really concentrated. The meat has absorbed that maple syrup, that salt. The flesh is darker. It's a lot firmer. So let's go outside and smoke this. As most of you know bacon is normally smoked and I recently got a smoker. But before that I was actually making bacon in a normal gas propane grill. What I did was I took the guards off the burners, I put some wood in there, lit a small fire and I put the bacon opposite the flame. I only lit up one side of the grill and then I tended the fire, made sure the grill didn't get too hot. You can smoke the bacon in a regular gas grill. It's just very monotonous. It can ruin the grill. But if you really want to try it and do it before you invest in the smoker, you can. That being said, since I do have a smoker today, we have a couple options. You can cold smoke it. You can keep it at a raw temperature and just impart the smoky flavor. Then you can have raw bacon if you like or you can then cook it at a later time. I think I'm going to go around 200-230 degrees for a nice low and slow cooking time. Because I do want a cooked pork product, a more traditional bacon preparation. You could go hot or you could even put this in the oven. The thing is if you put this in the oven, you won't have the flavor from the wood smoke. It'll still be an absolutely delicious pork belly, just not like traditional bacon. Some people might even prefer crispy pork belly in the oven. This says it's about 300 degrees. We're going to grab the pork and pop it in. I'm putting the belly fat side down, kind of in the front over here on the right, as far away from the heat source as possible. Right now this is on the max preheat. I'm going to put this on medium and we'll check in about 20 minutes to see what the temperature is. Alright, we're at about 200 degrees. I'm going to shift the belly over a little bit to the middle. I'll keep this stocked up with pellets and we'll let this go for a couple hours. So we've been smoking this for about three hours. Low and behold a beautiful pork belly. So we're going to take this beauty inside and let it rest for a couple hours. Look at that. We're going to let the bacon set in the fridge overnight and we'll have it tomorrow morning for breakfast. Sliced up the bacon. Now I'm just going to get it nice and crispy so we can taste it. I just made a free mess to wake up. What are we trying today, Gina? Hello, YouTube viewers. We're trying Frank's delicious bacon. Are they YouTube viewers or are they camera people? Camera people. Hello, camera people. Look how delicious this looks. How do you like the bacon, Gina? It's good. How does it compare to regular bacon? This bacon tastes more fresh than the other bacon kind of bacon. Is it the best bacon you've ever had? It's a little better. I just need a little bit more honey or maple syrup on it. Well, Gina, you wanted to doubt everything in sugar. That's because I'm extra sweet. What should they check out, Gina? Remember the title of my book? What's the title of my book again? You only read it three times, Gina. Ancestral. Ancestral. Indigenous diet. Check out my brother friend's book, Indigenous. Well, Gina, maybe you could be the taste tester, not the sales rep. But thank you guys for joining us today. Definitely give this recipe a shot. Try out the bacon from Frankie Syringe Meat. Or even better, go to your local farmer.