Last summer Tony raised hogs and was able to bring back a large store of meat. Many pot roasts later he finally got around to making the most popular pork product of all – bacon. I’m not much of a bacon fan (no offense to those who wrap candy bars with it) but I was down to document the process. Our friend has a homemade smoker he made out of a large ceramic planter retrofitted with an electric hotplate, cord coming out through the drain, using the water catcher as a lid and a tin for the wood chips. After salting + five days curing in the fridge the pork belly was ready for the rack. Ten hours of smoking over pre-soaked hickory chips later, the bacon was a bit more cooked than what you would expect but thinly sliced and fried it still hit the mark. One tip is to be careful with your salt ratio – figured according to the amount of fat – we had smaller pork bellies than the recipe we followed and the first batch was way too salty.