Ken was the first one to alert me to this new smoked delicacy called the Bacon Explosion, back in 2011.
“If this doesn’t say “I love Canada” – nothing does. Mind you, your heart may end up stopping after simply reading it,” he said.
The recipe was from the BBQ Addicts website and had slowly gone viral, with the New York Times publishing it’s adaptation of the recipe. BBQ Addicts came up with the recipe after being asked by Bacon Today to provide some barbecue bacon recipes. So the BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes was born.
I promised myself I would try it out, and I finally I got around to do it, inviting Scott and his crew to come over and help us making and mostly eating it.
Here’s what I used:
2 pounds of thick cut bacon
2 pounds of Hot Italian sausage meat
1 bottle of Kraft Original BBQ sauce
1 jar of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Cajun Foreplay spice rub
First, I started by baking half the bacon flat on a grid in the oven – I figured getting the fat to drip out was a good way to make this dish healthy.
Next, I started building the base by creating a 5×5 bacon weave. I made sure the base was tight and I ended up with a very nice square shape to work with.
Then, I generously added some spice rub on top of the bacon weave. The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Cajun Foreplay spice rub is an all-purpose dry spice blend that I picked up ($4.50) during one of my Syracuse pit-stops. Ingredients include Salt, Garlic, Paprika, Onion, Black Pepper, Roasted Chiles, Cayenne, Cane Sugar & more. It has bit of a kick and is great with pork.
Now that my bacon was well seasoned, it was time to add more pork. My butcher prepared three pounds of Italian sausage for me for the price of two, in case I needed extra. Nice guy. I layered it directly on top of the seasoned bacon.
I pressed the sausage carefully to the outer edges of the weave, making sure the sausage meat was evenly spread.
I flipped the whole thing over to make it extra tight and to season the other side slightly.
I pulled the remaining bacon slices from the oven, broke them in pieces and layered them on top of the sausage meat. These pieces will give more flavour to the roast and add a delicious internal crunchy texture later. I then sprinkled some BBQ sauce on top of it. I had selected the Kraft Original, a very simple tangy sauce with some vinegar undertones. It is a fairly balanced sweet and sour taste and has a good consistency.
Time to roll up the rim to win! I separated carefully the front edge of the sausage meat from the bacon base and began rolling backwards, going slowly and keeping the sausage as tight as I possibly could. Once fully rolled up, I pinched the seams together to seal it well.
Finally, I rolled the sausage forward to wrap it completely in the bacon weave and sprinkled more seasoning for good measure. The beast was looking good and was ready to go on my Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker.
I smoked it slowly, with natural wood charcoal and some hickory wood chips at around 230 degrees for about two hours.
About halfway through, I glazed the Bacon Explosion with a thin layer of BBQ sauce. As it is pork, I brought it to an internal temperature reading of 165 degrees to make sure it was done.
Then I added another layer of sauce to coat the entire surface, giving it a nice glossy finish while it was resting.
To serve, I cut nice, thick slices, about a quarter inch each. It smelled great, it looked delicious and we couldn’t wait to try it!
There was a nice pinwheel pattern throughout the sausage. You could see the bacon, the sausage meat, more bacon, fennel seeds and other seasonings.
This was simply the bomb. “A delicious smoked pork meatloaf,” stated Scott knowingly. So many bold flavours! It was juicy, and it was powerful, it was spicy, it was smokey, it was sweet, it was herby. It was great. If there was one thing I would do differently, I would choose a less salty rub. Thankfully, we had plenty to drink to help us out.
Behold, the Bacon Explosion!
