jaggers wrote:
Now I like variety as much as the next guy, but there's a reason if you talk cured and smoked meats, you're almost always talking pork. It's just tastier than beef for that type of thing.

I'll give this guy's beef bacon a try some day, but I'm willing to bet he's not the first to think of this, and that this idea has been tried and rejected in the past because this product is just a pale shadow of true, fatty, delicious, sweet, smoky, salty pork bacon. Mmmmmm... bacon...

I've come close.

I've dabbled in making Montreal smoked meat and it's a bloody difficult thing to do.  Even though I'm not a huge fan of Caplansky's meat (as being a pale, pale imitation of what you can get just off the 20 on Ile Perrot), having gone through the process a few times, I certainly appreciate what it takes to make it.  You get a full, 10+ lb brisket.  Cure it for two weeks.  Smoke it over maple, wait a day and then steam it just before you serve it.  The entire thing takes 2-3 weeks to make from start to service.

I've gotten to the point where what I make can come close to what you'd get in Montreal.  Fully aware of the weight of that statement, but I stand by it.  The sandwiches are excellent, moist and smoky, but almost better are the stolen pieces sliced off from the brisket when it just comes off the smoker the day before.  You open up the smoker and there's this monster hunk of meat, fully cooked and edible, covered in coriander seed and black pepper, but not quite ready for prime time.  The smell of maple smoke is everywhere and the first thing that comes to mind is good old fashioned bacon.  Cut a thin slice off the brisket: maple smoke permeates the meat and even better the fat.  Chewing this beefy, maple fat is like biting into a good (if uncrispy) piece of bacon, only with the benefit of lots of succulent smoked meat attached to it.  One thin slice becomes many thin slices and then all of a sudden, there's a huge chunk missing out of the brisket the day after.  You have no idea how good this meat and fat can be.

I completely believe that beef bacon is possible and is very likely delicious.  I'd be intrigued to see it here, or better yet, get my hands on a recipe.

Also, people who take my sentences and place them in their signature:  BB, what is wrong with you?  IIRC, those douchebags epeeist and Rusto did the same.  WTF?