Been to Jawja…been to Macon ;D
No pardon needed. Everyone’s welcome here.
Well yeah, but saying “I do it all of the time” and not providing any advice . . . !!! Come on, give some details of your experience! ;D
I’ve done the maple bacon from the Ruhlman/Polcyn book a few times and really like it. The instructions are to cook it in the oven at 200 (assumption being I think this is the most basic thing in the book and the one people will start on before they have a smoker). I hot smoke at about 200. Used plum wood this last time. Any mild fruit wood I think is good. Hickory can be overpowering.
I would use nitrite. Pork and cured pork taste completely different. If you expect it to taste like “bacon”, use the nitrite.
This last time I did 5 lbs of the maple recipe and 5 the same way with D2 instead of maple. It’s good, but the maple is better so I won’t do it again.
My last tip is to put in the effort to get a good piece of belly from a heritage breed (tamworth, mangalitsa, berkshire, etc). I did my first batch with chinese grocery belly and it was fine but after doing the second batch with a much higher quality belly, I’ll never go back. I just buy the whole belly and trim it square. Freeze the trimmings and use them for the fat in sausage later.
Well, my procedure is to take a whole fresh side and cut it into ~4 lb pieces to fit them into 2 gal. zip lock bags (the bellies I buy are generally 12ish lbs). Rub the meat with the salt, sugar, nitrate mixture as prescribed in Charcuterie. I’ll also add to that rub some crushed bay leaf, garlic (either high quality powder or minced), and course black pepper. Into zip lock baggies go the pieces which are then placed in the fridge. Every other day for a week I flip the slabs. ( I don’t remove the liquid from the bag). After a week, the slab is removed, rinsed and course black pepper is re-applied to the slab. Sometimes I’ll bake or smoke the slab. Others, I’ll just wrap in a bag then in butcher paper and freeze until I’m ready to use it.
When I plan to cook it, I’ll quasi-thaw the bacon, and using a VERY sharp chef’s knife, cut into thin strips. You’ll want the meat to be kinda solid to cut it easier. These strips are placed on a baking rack atop a sheet pan to bake until “done”
I’ve found that while the smoke and cooking before freezing does add to the flavor, it’s quite good cured and frozen (sans smoke or baking).
Trust me, homemade bacon done properly is glorious.
I decided to go with curing in salt, sugar, and maple syrup without the nitrates. When it’s done, I’ll hot smoke it to 150F using either maple or apple or both. It’s only ~5 lbs worth so I don’t expect it to last too long. I’ll take some lardons to a work BBQ, then slice up the rest and freeze it.
So how did it turn out? No pictures? Did it happen? 
It happened. No pictures of that batch, it’s gone. ;D
The next one I did leaving out the maple syrup and using some pepper, garlic, and bay leaf. There’s still some of that - do you want to see pics of the vacuum sealed bags? They’re in the freezer but I could snap a quick pic and post it . . . it looks like bacon. ;) This version tastes less like traditional bacon than the previous batch though, I’m not sure I like the recipe as well. The next batch I’ll probably use some pink salt.