Thanks YooperDog for your suggestions, I really appreciate it.

If you have a smoker that runs hot, crack open the door, put a tray of ice in it. Maybe do your smoking on a cold day. Watch the temp of your product, get a good thermometer for that. The temperature and smoke schedule is set up to help the meat get ready to accept smoke, get the smoke and bring the meat to temperature. There is a lot to learn, but it is like eating an elephant, one bite at a time. Folks here will pass on their knowledge and experience willingly, have fun with the journey.

GWG8541 said in How to Make Homemade Dry Rub Bacon - Recipe:

alanburkholder did you dry it on your Traeger?

patted dry with paper towels then onto the traeger. Apple wood until internal temp was 137…

IMO you could be forgiven for making this mistake alanburkholder.

The web listing for Dry Rub Bacon Cure would have you believe you just need to rinse the pork belly after curing.

Jonathon IMO that could be a source of a lot of customer confusion and probably should be updated to include the soaking instructions. Or just removed from the web listing.

processhead said in How to Make Homemade Dry Rub Bacon - Recipe:

To the question of whether to cover or uncover the meat, with the EQ method, I wrap the belly in film after applying the rub, because I want as much of the rub to absorb into the meat as possible and not lose any as the natural juices sweat out of the meat.

Paul, to be clear you are referring to cling wrap film and NOT |22-in-x-24-in-Collagen-Sheets used in dry aging right? The collagen sheets would allow it to breathe, but the cling wrap would not.

Correct. I was referring to plastic film.

To the question of whether to cover or uncover the meat, with the EQ method, I wrap the belly in film after applying the rub, because I want as much of the rub to absorb into the meat as possible and not lose any as the natural juices sweat out of the meat.

Paul, to be clear you are referring to cling wrap film and NOT |22-in-x-24-in-Collagen-Sheets used in dry aging right? The collagen sheets would allow it to breathe, but the cling wrap would not.

When storing in a meat lug in the fridge, do you put a lid on the lug or keep it open to the air?

Dry rub bacon process is similar to the EQ method since both are a dry method, but differs in that it would appear you are adding more salt to the meat at the front end of the dry rub process, but then doing an extended soak and rinse to pull the excess salt out.
With the EQ method you are adding the exact amount of salt, sugar and cure to the belly, per lb of weight and make no effort to remove any of it after curing.
To the question of whether to cover or uncover the meat, with the EQ method, I wrap the belly in film after applying the rub, because I want as much of the rub to absorb into the meat as possible and not lose any as the natural juices sweat out of the meat.
To your question about covering or leaving the lug uncovered for the dry rub method, my concern about leaving it uncovered would be that the belly would lose more moisture due to being uncovered and also absorb undesirable odors from my refrigerator.
Moisture loss might not be that much, and the belly is going to dry even more in the smoker so maybe it doesn’t make any difference. In my refrigerator, I tend to keep things covered though, just so they don’t absorb odors from all the non-meat items I also store in there.