Makin’ Bacon – Edwards of Surry, VA

Just prior to Christmas I arrived home to notice a plain brown cardboard box sitting on my front porch.  Turns out the guy who up until the 31st I called boss got me a little holiday gift. I opened it to find two pounds of gourmet bacon from Edwards of Surry, Virgina. 

Antibiotic Free, Certified Humane, Simple Basic Cure…this made my lips smack!

And it was right on time!  We had a BACON SUNDAY Celebration approaching and this would be perfect to break out on my family.  So in the freezer it went until December 27th!

Let’s get to cookin’ after the jump…

So the first thing I noticed was how small the package seemed compared to regular store bacon.  I actually pulled both packages down in anticipation that this little slab wouldn’t have enough goodness in it for my family.  I had my brother, his wife, my mom, my wife and I all eating breakfast together and seriously thought I’d consume almost a whole package myself given it’s size.

Well surprise, surprise…pulling the slices out was like clowns popping out of a VW bug!  This was only a pound of bacon but it yielded a whopping 35 slices!!! 35 SLICES PEOPLE!!  Your average store bought pound will get you about 16 on average…WOW!

Each slice had a decent thickness too…this wasn’t fast food bacon thick, but a true standard thickness.

The slices were a little thinner in width…normally I can only get 7-8 slices of store bought on my tray. You can see we got 11 down here…but the slices still stretched from end to end of the sheet.

And here was the first batch out of the oven.  Was really happy with the color and limited shrinkage.  These really finished to about the same size / shape as store bought!

I slightly overcooked the first batch (you can see the burn on the edges) but all-in-all it turned out real well.  Great meat to fat ratio in the final cooked slices.

But the surprises continued.  When I saw what was left on my baking sheet…

I was floored!!!  Look at how clean this bacon cooked up!!  I have never, NEVER seen this little and this clean of grease out of any regular store bought stuff.  I don’t know what this means, but I am completely fascinated by it.

One of the only drawbacks with this bacon was the overwhelming smoke smell that permeated the kitchen (and eventually entire front room) even after just the first tray (and I had two more to go after that).  I love the smell of bacon, but this really was heavy and lingered for almost 3 days…a little too long for my tastes.

So what about the taste?  Let’s break out the BRS:

Reminder that for all “Makin’ Bacon” reviews, bacon is oven baked at 400 degress and cooked to optimal doneness; until just crisp, but still a little chewy (total cooking time will be recorded but is typically 12 minutes).

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STATS
Brand: Edwards of Surry, Virgina
Name: Sliced Berkshire Stacked Bacon
Cost per pound: GIFT
Where purchased: GIFT
Packaging: Vacuum packed plastic
Cut: Standard, Pre Sliced, 35 slices
Preservatives: Sodium Nitrate
Cooking heat: 400
Total cooking time: 12 minutes

BACON RATING:
The scale looks like this: 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1

The left end is “not enough” and the right end is “too much”, so a perfect score would be 5

Pork Flavor
not enough << 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 >> too much

Smoke
not enough << 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 >> too much

Salt
not enough << 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 >> too much

Sugar
not enough << 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 >> too much

Fat
not enough << 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 >> too much

Texture
too chewy << 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 >> too crisp

OVERALL SCORE: 3.83

BACON TASTING NOTES:

While the hickory smoke smell took over the kitchen, it really didn’t come across that strong when eating the bacon.  It was a nice balance between the hickory and sugar.  The cut seemed light on fat when initially holding the package but looking at final cooked product, it seemed like this was trimmed very well and provided great fat/meat balance.  I thoroughly enjoyed this bacon even though I didn’t award a single five.  Maybe I’m being too harsh, maybe I don’t want to oversell but friends let me tell you…if you can get your hands on this bacon you will be very happy!

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• March 31, 2010 -- Makin’ Bacon – Machine Gun Style…
• August 20, 2009 -- The BRS – Bacon Rating System