From the archive: E88
The Bacon Explosion
For the ambitious: 2 pounds of bacon woven around 2 pounds of sausage, invented by 2 Kansas City pitmasters in 2008. At about 5,000 calories, it's more of a dare than a dish.
What you need
2 pounds thick-cut bacon
2 pounds Italian sausage (loose, mild or spicy)
1 bottle BBQ sauce (the original uses Burnt Finger BBQ sauce)
1 shaker BBQ rub, sweeter rather than saltier (the original uses Burnt Finger BBQ rub)
A smoker and hickory for smoke
How to make it
Weave a tight 5-by-5 square of bacon strips, adding extra slices if your strips run narrow.
Dust the weave with rub. The bacon brings plenty of salt, so a sweeter rub keeps things balanced.
Press the sausage over the weave in an even layer, all the way to the edges.
Cook the rest of the bacon however you like it, chop it into bites and scatter it over the sausage.
Drizzle with BBQ sauce and add another sprinkle of rub.
Lift the front edge of the sausage off the weave and roll it into a tight log, leaving the weave flat on the board. Pinch the seams and ends closed.
Roll the log forward so the bacon weave wraps all the way around it, seam side down, then rub the outside.
Smoke at 225°F over hickory until the center hits 165°F, about 1 hour per inch of thickness (roughly 2.5 hours for a 2.5-inch log).
Brush on a thin coat of sauce and slice into 1/4- to 1/2-inch rounds to show off the pinwheel.
Get the full recipe
Original recipe by Jason Day at BBQ Addicts. As featured in E88.
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