By “review” I mean that I got this bacon for free to see what Meathenge Labs thought of it. Pretty cool, huh? I spent some time reading through U.S. Wellness Meats web site, there’s tons of decent content in there. Wellness was founded by John Wood, a fifth-generation farmer. In the beginning he used traditional ranching methods, but over time took a sideways look at how he was doing things and thought there could be a better/different way. Starting in ’97 he raised a few of his cuties on a 100% forage diet, rotational grazing and making sure they had the best forage action on a daily basis. By 2000 it was in full swing, the tests proved he could make a better product this way.
I read in their FAQ page addressing how come their not certified organic, made me sick to my stomach. They state it better than I do, so I lifted this from their page without permission:
“All U.S. Wellness Meats pastures and animals have been maintained with organic principles in mind since 2000. Unfortunately, the state of Missouri dropped a state-run organic-certification program and turned it over to a private certifier several years ago. The private certifier wanted 3% of the gross income of the preceding year to maintain the license. We politely said no, and felt if Thomas Jefferson were still alive he would concur. Sadly, greed has infiltrated a noble cause. 50% of the Missouri organic producers have let their certification lapse since this situation was created by the Missouri legislature.”
You read that correctly, ranchers have to give up 3% of their income to maintain certification. Sigh.
Anyway, enough of that it’s making me mad. I had to take another look at the bacon to make myself feel better. Listen up, they got good bacon! The meat is substantial and the fat is creamy, very mild & clean odor upon opening up the package. I preheated an old 14″ cast iron fry pan and set to cooking, used a bacon press. It’s nice and thick, so it takes a bit to brown and finish. Once it was patted dry with paper towels, it went in to my mouth. Excellent meaty texture on the teeth, low on the sweet cure, a good clean finish. For my package, I noticed it was quite lacking in smoky flavors, kinda surprised. A while back I had a chance to get two packages of bacon to try, one was smoky, one was not. So, I can’t say whether the lack of smoke flavors is typical or just something that happened. Maybe it wasn’t rotated and/or flipped in the smoker, that could have been it. I just don’t know.
In any case, I’m going to give this pound of bacon 3.85 out of 5. With good smoky flavors, I would have given it a 4.75 out of 5.
xo, Biggles
MeatHenge
"If it ain't pork, it ain't sausage"
HOOOAH Biggles,
You tell em, put some damn smoke on my bacon. It is becoming more accptable to do a halfass job in the chamber these day, as those sensitive types “Want to taste the meat”. I say pour the cure to it and pour the smoke to it. We are making bacon for crise sake.
Not a fan of nitrite/trates either. Alittle is pretty much needed when doing bone-in stuff, but bacon does just fine without. Cant tell it wasnt pink once it is fried.
Could have always laid it in the old cold smoker for a few minutes………
Hey Salvage,
Good to hear from you mang! I thought for sure they’d carried your old carcass out to the smoker.
Totally understood, but as I said in my post, I find the smoky love varies from package to package. They sent me some beef bacon to try along with a bottom round beef and some tri-tip steaks. I’m on it.
xo, Biggles
Is that socre a little high when you do not get consistency? Low on sweet cure and not smokey? Maybe you have forgotten your roots of the Gold Standard.(A&B). Huzahh you Meat Foo!!!!
Hey CB,
Oh Chilebrown, if I compared all bacon to the Gold Standard (A&B), nobody would get above a 2. No, instead I attempted to review this bacon against its own merit. I would have liked a little more sweetness, but now that I think about it, the meat was able to come out a little more. That there, is good pork belly.
xo
Oh, you ain’t ate my bacon. Chilebrown rated it 4.5. Of course, he was just being nice.