With winter doldrums slowly melting away, March has traditionally been a busier month outside on the grill than the past several months, hence March Madness is back!

First up at the beginning of the month I got to work putting two 10lb pork bellies in brine to make bacon, and two 3lb pork centre loins in brine for Canadian Bacon.

These will sit and wait for 14 days, flipping each bag every 24 hours.

Dandy feed of large mud trout caught on my snowmobile trip to Indian Bay with Dad.

After we got back from our Corner Brook trip I got the pork ready for the smoker. It's taken out of the bag, rinsed, left to dry uncovered in the fridge overnight, then put on the Pit Boss on smoke setting P4 plus my lumberjack smoke tube, both burning apple wood pellets.

Once colour was great and internal temp at 155ºF the bellies were placed on racks to cool to room temperature in the oven with the door cracked enough to keep curious kitties away.

After that they go in the fridge overnight to chill which makes slicing much easier the following day.

Sliced, expertly packaged by Sandra and ready for the freezer. Should keep us going a few months!

Nothing beats homemade bacon, but the quality of these two pork bellies is better than everything else we've made, these were top notch!

Later that evening Roger and Bassan dropped over to put more pork in brine. This will be Roger's first batch of homemade bacon from the Pit Boss, and Bassan's 2nd batch of Canadian Bacon.

In a couple weeks time the Pit Boss will be running bacon once again!

On the 18th Matt French spent the day tending to a beautiful brisket on his Pit Boss Austin XL.

The goal of this cook was to try brisket topped burgers!

Also topped with Alyssa's homemade mango salsa! It looks epic!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith