Bacon Review - Daily's Applewood Smoked Thick Sliced Bacon

Founded in Missoula, Montana in 1893, Daily's has been supplying the West with bacon, ham, and sausage for well over 100 years. Their website has a cute page about their history, featuring nostalgic black and white photos of men with inordinately obtrusive mustaches.

Branding themselves as "the bacon specialists", Daily's offers center-cut, thick sliced bacon in hardwood smoked, honey cured, and peppered varieties. I acquired my applewood smoked bacon by the slice, at Harbor Greens (Gig Harbor, WA). According to Daily's it seems to be available at most supermarkets in packaged servings, as well.

Before I go any further, I will confess that for the longest time, Daily's was my standby bacon. While I've branched out, it still reserves a special place in my stomach. I will try to continue without bias though.

It's not really necessary to cook Daily's to taste it—most of the flavor is in the applewood smoke. Not to fool you though, the actual meat still retains some of the apple flavor. Along with the sugar used in curing, Daily's Applewood Smoked is altogether a very sweet, flavoury bacon.

The cut I got was considerably fatty—the fat and greasiness levels were pretty congruent with what I remembered of Daily's. While the sweet and smokey flavor is enjoyable, the aftertaste is somewhat marred by the amount of grease.
(Note: If you're a freak like me, the greasiness is redeemed in the recycle value of saving your bacon grease—a little goes a long way, and Daily's renders a lot of grease.)

The salt played its role in preserving the meat, but didn't do much past that. Since it lacked a strong porky flavor, more or less salt wouldn't have improved nor detracted from the bacon.

Thick slicing offered more bacon per serving, but detracted from the texture as the bacon neither really cooked flat nor formed succulent wrinkles—this led to problems for me as the edges of the slice would darken, while the fatty areas took longer to cook.

Altogether, I would give Daily's Applewood Smoked bacon a try for the balance of applewood smoke and sugary sweetness. However, the grease and texture is a bit of a drawback, and ultimately it lacks the porky umph that defines the ideal slice of bacon.

Due to the unique flavor, I can't recommend it for cooking in bacon-enriched recipes. Otherwise, Daily's stands well on its own, and is great by itself or in a breakfast setting.

Daily's Applewood Smoked Thick Sliced Bacon:

[Overall] ~~~

[Pork] ~~
[Salt] ~~~
[Fat] ~~
[Smoke] ~~~~~