We had my aunt’s memorial service yesterday which was lovely.  We came home and got the meats ready for smoking.  For the hams, we removed them from the brine, rinsed them, blotted them dry with towels and placed them on racks in the refrigerator to continue drying overnight,  For the bacon we removed them from their bags, rinse and then patted them with towels.  They also went on racks, but they were covered with fresh cracked pepper then dried overnight.

Then this morning Tom’s brother arrived with a large smoker on a trailer.  Later his boss who also partially owns the smoker arrived to help out.

Tom split alder and apple wood to make the fire to smoke the meat.

The meat went on the racks in the smoker and smoked for more than 6 hours.

It was a cold, windy, rainy day so we spent some time in the warm garage.  The cat decided that the wash mitt was a nice place to take a nap.

Tom’s dad, sister and brother-in-law came over as well. We had a nice lunch with our bacon cheese burgers.  And the smoking continued.

And here is the smoked meat.

They left, and we wrapped the meats in freezer paper.  Denise picked up her share, and the shares for us and my mother/step dad went in the freezer.  We look forward to trying it.  It looks and smells amazing!