What to put in the smoker this weekend?

[Dave]

Those pork bellies look great. I'm looking at hickory for mine once I get to them, but also looking at maple wood as well, especially for the sweet ones since they use maple syrup in the recipe.

[DenverGP]

Those pork bellies look great. I'm looking at hickory for mine once I get to them, but also looking at maple wood as well, especially for the sweet ones since they use maple syrup in the recipe.

My maple syrup/brown sugar one didn't come out very sweet. Think I need to research some more recipes for sweet bacon. After curing for the week, we rinsed both of them off well, dried them, and added some cracked pepper to the pepper/spicy one. Didn't put anything on the sweet one, and yet it ended up VERY sticky on the outside. I was really surprised, didn't think the sugar would absorb into the meat that much. But I think the salt overpowered the sweet flavors. Still tastes like awesome bacon, so I'm not going to complain.

After they cooled down to room temp, we cut off a couple test slices off each, then wrapped the remaining slabs in plastic wrap and let them rest overnight before slicing up the rest.