This double smoked bacon recipe is the perfect addition to your breakfast lineup using your outdoor pellet grill.
This is the best way to hot smoke bacon for a early morning tailgate or just breakfast for friends and family if you’re a master smoker who loves any reason to fire up the smoker.
When you don’t cook in a cast iron skillet on the stove, in an air fryer, or even in the oven, the bacon doesn’t leave a strong smell in your house for hours, and the smoke flavor makes the bacon taste even better.
Read the article below to learn all the smoking tips and tricks you need to make bacon on the grill. Let’s dive in!.
For bacon lovers, few smells are more enticing than the aroma of sizzling bacon cooking on the grill. Outdoor cooking takes bacon to the next level by infusing it with delicious smoky flavor. Green Mountain Grills (GMG) are especially well-suited for crafting next-level bacon at home.
GMG grills use advanced wood pellet technology to take the guesswork out of infusing rich, smoky taste into foods of all kinds, bacon included. In this guide, we’ll cover how to cook perfect bacon on a Green Mountain Grill every time.
Benefits of Cooking Bacon on a GMG
Green Mountain Grills heat to temperatures of 150°F to 500°F using burning wood pellets made of 100% natural hardwood This makes them ideal for cooking bacon for several reasons
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Imparts a delicious hint of wood smoke flavor. Apple, maple and hickory pellets work great with bacon.
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Provides steady low heat ideal for rendering fat without scorching.
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Large grilling surface accommodates batches of bacon.
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No flipping required Heat circulates evenly around food
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Grease drains away cleanly, avoiding flare-ups.
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Infuse flavors by adding smoked salts or maple, brown sugar or other rubs.
With the right techniques, you can enjoy restaurant-quality smoked bacon easily at home using your GMG.
Choosing the Right Wood Pellets
The wood pellets used in the grill significantly impact the flavor of the bacon. Fruit wood pellets like apple, cherry, and pecan deliciously complement bacon’s salty, savory taste.
Maple wood pellets give a sweet touch reminiscent of breakfast. For a more robust flavor, hickory and mesquite pellets bring a stronger smoky essence.
Try mixing a fruit pellet with a small amount of hickory or mesquite for balanced sweet and savory notes. Play around with wood pellet blends to find your favorites.
Preparing the Bacon
Look for high-quality thick cut bacon with plenty of meat. Thinner slices can overcook and shrivel up on the grill. Cut each slice in half crosswise so it fits better on the grill grates.
Before grilling, soak wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes. Thread a skewer through the end of each bacon slice half to make them easy to handle on the grill.
Consider seasoning the bacon first with brown sugar, maple syrup, smoked salt, cracked pepper or dry rubs. Get creative with flavors!
Setting Up the Grill
Assemble the grill per the manufacturer’s instructions and preheat to 180°F using your chosen pellets. Place a drip pan underneath the grill grate to catch grease.
For smoke cooking, you want a steady low temperature. Keep the grill lid closed as much as possible to contain the smoke.
Cooking Times for Bacon
The cooking time can vary based on bacon thickness and desired crispness:
- Thinner sliced – 60-90 minutes
- Thick sliced – 90 minutes to 2 hours
- Extra crispy – 2 to 2.5 hours
Start checking the bacon around the 1 hour mark. Cook longer if you prefer it very crisp.
Best Practices for Smoky Bacon
Follow these tips for getting the most out of your Green Mountain Grill bacon experience:
- Choose the right wood pellets for your preferred flavor.
- Preheat grill fully before adding bacon.
- Skewer bacon slices to make flipping easier.
- Use lower 180°F to 220°F heat for gentle smoke cooking.
- Flip occasionally for even cooking but don’t fuss with it too much.
- Glaze with maple syrup during last 15 minutes if desired.
- Allow bacon to rest 5 minutes before serving for juicier meat.
Serving Smoked Bacon from the GMG
Hot, crispy bacon right off the Green Mountain Grill makes a perfect topping, accompaniment or snack. Try serving it:
- Crumble over baked potatoes or salads.
- On burgers or breakfast sandwiches.
- Pair with syrup or brown sugar as a sweet treat.
- In BLTs, Cobb salads or carbonara pasta.
- Sprinkle over beans, pizza or mac and cheese.
However you enjoy it, bacon cooked low and slow on a GMG delivers incredible texture and flavor. The possibilities are endless! Experiment with different woods, seasoning and pellet mixes to find your favorite.
Preparation And Smoking Tips:
Cooking bacon is very straightforward, but here are some essential tips for hot smoking bacon on your grill.
- Start with cold bacon straight from the fridge. It’s best if it’s cold! This helps render the fat, which makes the bacon crispier, and lets it get a smokey flavor by cooking on the grill longer.
- Don’t smoke the bacon directly on the grill grates. If you really want to, you can, but the best way is to use a baking sheet with a foil edge and a wire rack on top of it. Place one strip of thick-cut bacon on top of the wire cooling rack. This makes room for the smokey air to move around the grill and cook the bacon. The bacon grease is collected below, so there is no big mess and no chance of a grease fire.
- Before smoking the bacon, add any extra seasonings you want. Don’t use extra kosher salt in rubs; they are already too salty.
- Always start with a full preheated grill. Put the bacon on the smoker rack and cook it until it’s done the way you like it.
- Use fruit-based wood pellets for smoking. I like cherry or apple pellets best. If you want a stronger flavor, though, hickory or even mesquite can be used instead of pellet smokers. Pellet smokers don’t usually give you as strong of a smoke flavor.
Why This Recipe Works:
Smokers are very similar to ovens. They use indirect dry heat to cook and render the bacon fat, but with the addition of smoke.
This works well for cured pork, I even double smoke ham on my Big Green Egg as well.
Now, pre-packaged bacon that you buy from the store has already been cured and smoked. This is a recipe specifically for cooking the bacon so it’s double smoked (adding more smoky flavor).
- Large Baking Pan
- Aluminum Foil or Parchment Paper
- Wire Rack
- Tongs
- Paper Towels
- Electric Smoker (Traeger grills, Pit Boss, Yoder, etc.)
Welcome to my online classroom! The notes below will help you learn. I answer a lot of the questions I get from readers and cooks like you.
This information is meant to help you understand this recipe and the process better so that you can do it on your own.
Ready to begin cooking? Simply jump to the recipe card below and begin.
Besides being delicious, bacon simply is cured pork belly. Pork belly comes from the belly of the pig (thus the name). The pork belly slab goes through a process called curing, but could also be dry brined.
The curing process is similar to the method used for other fatty, rich meats like ham and salami. Curing is essentially the preservation of food using sodium nitrite, which allows for longer storage without refrigeration.
Pork bellies are seasoned with salt and nitrites and then injected several times over a few weeks with a curing solution that has brown sugar or maple syrup and sodium nitrate to make the bacon sweet and flavorful.
This recipe is for cooking store-bought bacon specifically on your pellet smoker (charcoal smoker works too) and isn’t a recipe to cure a pork belly slab. If you’re looking to make homemade bacon entirely from scratch, check out this recipe for cold-smoking pork belly.
- Thick-Cut Bacon (choose your favorite type of bacon or flavors like apple wood, maple bacon, brown sugar, and more) ).
That’s it! All you need to make bacon is bacon. Buy whichever type of bacon you prefer, but find something that is thicker cut. This allows for additional time to get more smoke flavor into the pork.
If you want to make your bacon slices taste better, I suggest adding a low-sodium dry rub or even just some smoky paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper.
Like the bacon a little sweeter? Brush on some maple syrup, honey, or brown sugar as well. You can also try my keto candied bacon recipe and use that on the smoker too!.
How to make bacon from scratch.
FAQ
What temperature do you cook bacon at on a pellet grill?
What temperature to cook bacon on a grill?
How long to smoke bacon at 250 degrees?
Do you leave the grill open when cooking bacon?
How do you cook bacon on a grill?
Line the baking sheet with aluminum foil. Put a rack on top of the baking sheet and spray with cooking oil to prevent sticking. Line the bacon directly on top of the rack. Place in the center of the grill for 20 minutes. Flip the bacon and cook for another 20-25 minutes. Remove from the grill and let it rest for 10 minutes.
How do you cook bacon on a pellet grill?
Use thick-cut bacon, lay on a rack, bake at 350° for 20 minutes and flip the bacon, then finish cooking for another 25 minutes. We cooked it on a Pit Boss, but this process will work for any type of pellet grill. If you’re ready to begin cooking and don’t want to follow the step-by-step instructions, use these quick tips to get started.
What do you put on Your Green Mountain wood pellet grill/smoker?
We usually put something special on our Green Mountain Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker but sometimes we cook inside. We always eat outside on our patio where it is very comfortable with a rainforest theme. Wood Pellet Patio Heater, little lights, candles, lanterns and surround sound.
Can you cook bacon on a skewer?
Yeah, don’t bother trying this one. On a skewer: Threading bacon on a skewer like a ribbon (and cooking directly on the grill) seemed a lovely idea. But the bacon cooked unevenly, alternating burnt spots and undercooked spots wherever the “ribbon” bent.