My first bacon weave. It really was pretty easy. After I finished the weave, I covered it with some more parchment paper and rolled it out with a rolling pin. It made the weave a little tighter.
Next came the ground meat. No store-bought hamburger for this boy.
I used a chuck roast cut into cubes and chilled in the freezer. Chilling it makes it less likely to smear when being ground. If you don't have a meat grinder, your food processor will work, just make sure you really chill the meat cubes.
A good-sized chuck roast makes a lot of hamburger meat.
I used half ground chuck and half Jimmy Dean sausage. About a pound of each. Why did I use a mixture? Because I felt like it. That seems to be the rule of thumb when making a fatty.
Here's my veggies. I used roasted poblano and bell peppers, coursely chopped onion, and some chopped Kalamata olives.
The great thing about a fatty is you can throw just about anything you want in there.
Here's my cheese, half Asadero and half sharp Cheddar.
I rolled the meat out making sure I kept it small enough to fit inside the bacon weave.
I covered the inside with Kosher salt and some steak rub I had on hand. I order a lot of spices from MySpiceSage.com and with every order you get to select a free sample. That's where the steak rub came from.
Everything added to the meat and ready to roll. I tried to leave enough room at the edges and on one end to seal it up..
And here it is all rolled up. It went better than I thought although the parchment paper stuck a little. I transferred it to some non-stick Reynolds wrap and put it in the fridge to firm back up.
The moment of truth. Actually, it was pretty easy.
Rolled up and transferred to another sheet of non-stick Reynolds wrap. When I made the weave, I left off one strip of bacon I could have used on either side. That left some strips sticking out far enough to cover the ends of the meat roll. It worked really well.
Onto the Yoder YS640 it goes. That's a basket I sometimes use to grill veggies. I sprayed it with Pam. Thought it might be better than putting the fatty right on the grate.
The smoker is set to 250 and I'll smoke it to an internal temp of 165. Should take about 2 1/2 hours.
I used the Wedgie to add a little more smoke.
After the internal temperature reached about 165, I installed the direct grill grates in the Yoder.
Used direct grilling because Smoking temps aren't high enough to crisp the bacon and higher heat also carmelized the barbeque sauce.
Fatty on a bun. Mmmmmm good
