How Long to Smoke Bacon: A Cured Slab, Sliced Strips, and a Cold Smoke Are Three Different Jobs
Recipes for smoking bacon range from 20 minutes to 6 hours, and the spread has nothing to do with disagreement. A whole cured slab, a package of pre-sliced strips, and a cold smoke are three different jobs wearing the same one-word name.
Search “how long to smoke bacon” and the answers split hard: 20 to 45 minutes in some recipes, 3 to 4 hours in others, and a Reddit thread describing 5 to 6 hours at a much lower smoker temperature before a final push to finish. None of these people are wrong about bacon. They are answering different questions that happen to share the same four words.
Three starting points, one word
“Bacon” on a smoker forum can mean a whole slab that has already been cured, going on the smoker as one piece and coming off sliceable. It can mean the pre-sliced strips from a store package, already cured and already thin, hitting the grates as a cooking method instead of a skillet. Or it can mean cold smoke: no real heat at all, just smoke sitting on meat that gets cooked properly later. Three starting points, three clocks, and one search term that does not say which one you mean.
There is a fourth version further back in the process too: curing a raw pork belly into bacon in the first place. That is a longer story with its own page on this site, linked below, and it is not what most people typing this exact search are asking.
A whole cured slab, cooked to serve
A cured pork belly slab, smoked whole at 200 to 225°F, generally takes 3 to 4 hours to reach 145 to 155°F internal. ThermoWorks describes nearly the same process: preheat to 200°F, hold until the belly pulls at roughly 150°F, about 3 to 4 hours for a typical slab. A well-upvoted Reddit thread runs the same destination at a much lower smoker temperature instead, 135°F for 5 to 6 hours, then a push to 160°F to finish at 140°F internal. Same cured slab, same rough target, a cooler fire just spends longer getting there, the same chamber-temperature tradeoff this site’s tri tip article measured on a completely different cut. This target also sits well below the 190 to 205°F range this site’s pork belly article uses for a slab meant to be sliced and eaten hot off the smoker. Push a bacon-bound slab that high and there is very little bacon texture left to fry later.
Pre-sliced strips: cooking, not curing
Strips from a store package are already cured and usually already smoked once at the plant. Putting them on a smoker at this point is a cooking method, not a curing project, and the clock reflects that: roughly 20 to 45 minutes total, often starting around 200°F for the first stretch and finishing at 325 to 350°F to crisp the fat. Sipbitego’s version runs 20 to 30 minutes at 300°F start to finish. Jerkyholic smokes 30 minutes low, then 15 to 20 minutes higher.
The reason this clock is a fraction of the whole slab’s has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with shape. A slice a few millimeters thick has almost no distance between its surface and its center, so heat gets through in minutes. This site’s sausage article already covers a cut where the shape is fixed upstream, by the casing at the point of stuffing. Sliced bacon fixes its shape even earlier, at the plant slicer, before the package is ever opened. Neither cook chooses the geometry. Both just live with what they are handed.
Cold smoke is a different process, not a faster one
Cold smoking bacon means holding the meat in smoke at a low enough temperature, generally under 90°F, that it never actually cooks. It is a flavoring step, not a doneness target, which is why it does not show up as a single time-and-temperature answer the way the other two versions do. Cold-smoked bacon still needs a real cook afterward, in a pan or oven, before it is safe to eat. Confusing this with the whole-slab cook above is easy from the name alone. Both start with cured pork belly. Only one of them is finished when it comes off the smoker.
If there is no bacon yet
Everything above assumes bacon that already exists, as a slab or a package. Turning a raw pork belly into bacon is a separate project involving a cure first, and this site’s pork belly article covers that path in detail, including why a belly headed toward bacon gets pulled at a lower temperature than one meant to be sliced hot. The same article covers pork belly burnt ends, a third destination for the same raw cut.
The three clocks, side by side
| Starting point | Smoker temp | Target | Rough time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole cured slab | 135-225°F | 140-155°F internal | 3-6 hours |
| Pre-sliced strips | 200°F, then 325-350°F | Crisp, to preference | 20-45 minutes |
| Cold smoke | Under 90°F | No internal target, flavor only | Several hours, then cooked separately |
Wood, briefly
Fruit woods show up often in bacon recipes, applewood in particular, which makes sense on a cut that is already salted and often already smoked once during curing. This site’s apple wood page and general wood guide cover the tradeoffs in more depth than a bacon-specific note can.
What I have not measured
None of the numbers above come from this site’s own rig. The how we test page explains the difference between tested and analyzed content here, and this article is analyzed: recipes and sources compared against each other, not a cook run on this site’s own equipment. The temperature targets agree closely enough across independent sources to trust. The time ranges depend on slab thickness and how steadily the smoker holds its temperature, so treat them as a starting point rather than a countdown, the same caution this site gives on every other cut.
Slice meat even thinner than a pre-sliced strip and the equation changes again. Jerky is what happens past that line, where the meat is never headed for a plate at all.
