Cooking Bacon on MAK 2 Star Pellet Grill

Bacon is one of those foods that goes great with everything. You can crumble it on top of a salad, add bacon to a cheeseburger, fry it up with your eggs, or you can eat it as a snack. Your options are endless.

We cook anywhere from 2-5 lbs. of bacon every week and store it in the fridge to use with meals and snacks throughout the week. The only problem with bacon is its time-consuming and messy to cook. The good things in life take time and patience and bacon is no exception. A good pellet grill will make this process much easier.

The Cook

• 5 lbs. Thick Cut Peppered Bacon!
• MAK 2 Star Pellet Grill
• 325 degrees for 20 minutes
• FlameZone covers off
• Lumber Jack wood pellets

Lay Out Bacon on Foil Lined Baking Sheets

The MAK 2 Star will accommodate large baking sheets due to the interior size of the grill. The baking sheets we used were around 20” x 14” which is the normal size for a large baking sheet. Take some heavy-duty foil and completely line the baking sheet will make cleanup much easier. This will also help prevent the bacon from sticking.

Using a baking sheet will help contain the grease which will drastically help keep the smoke to a minimum. It is also a great way to contain the grease so you can keep it in your fridge to use later. Bacon grease is great to use for cooking or you can use it to add to hamburger meat for flavoring. There are so many great uses for this natural rendered fat.

Cooking Bacon on a Pellet Grill Keeps the Heat and Smoke Outside

If you cook a lot of bacon, you probably have learned to use baking sheets to cook your bacon in the oven. The reason for this is you can cook more bacon simultaneously and you can have at least two cookie sheets in the oven at once. The downside is the house can fill with smoke and the grease usually pops and sizzles all over the inside of your oven. It can be a mess.

Cooking bacon outside on your pellet grill takes the mess and heat outside. A pellet grill is a great way to cook anything outside because the controller is always doing its best to maintain the set temperature automatically. This allows you to not have to worry about messing with a fire and you get that wood flavor injected into your bacon. A good pellet grill lets you spend your time cooking, not messing around adjusting vents and adding more wood or charcoal to the fire.

Crisp Bacon with Smoke Flavor on a Pellet Grill

We had two large baking sheets running simultaneously. One was on the bottom surface grill and the other up on the full size upper grate. The bacon on the bottom would cook in about 20 minutes at 325 degrees with the FlamZone covers off. We would transfer the top baking sheet down to grill level once the bacon was done on the bottom. Starting the bacon on top rack and moving it down allows it to get more smoke flavor.

You want to take the bacon off the grill before it looks completely done. If you wait too long it will render over crispy with a burnt flavor. There is nothing worse than bacon that taste nasty. By removing the bacon once it gets a mahogany color you will ensure a good, crisp bite with a small amount of chew.

The pellet grill with the foil lined baking sheets does a great job of cooking crispy bacon while keeping the mess outside. You can cook bacon just as if you were cooking in the kitchen oven but the pellet grill will add smoke flavor not found in a traditional oven. It is another great use for the extremely versatile pellet grill.

Conclusion

No matter what event you have going on at your home, you can always throw bacon on your pellet grill. It can be used to accommodate any food or you can lay a basket of bacon out as an appetizer. Having a quality pellet grill is like having a second kitchen oven outside. The main difference being good quality wood pellets will impart a sweet smoke flavor not found with indoor cooking.