Ledebuhr Meat Processing - Winona, Minnesota
Scouting for bacon isn't as glamorous as it sounds, but alas it is a sacrifice we at Bacon Scouts are willing to make just for you. On a beautiful Saturday morning recently we pulled into an empty parking lot at Ledebuhr Meat Processing in Winona, Minnesota. A quaint and classic looking meat market, it was our first stop for the day.Ledebuhr's sells many different kinds of meat from the standard beef and pork to buffalo and elk. They also do custom meat processing. The interior of the store I would describe as no frills and industrial. The staff is helpful and service is prompt. Once I had a chance to look around at the selection of delicious meats traffic picked up considerably in the store.Bacon seems to be a small portion of what they do with only one variety behind the meat counter. It is a small meat counter, very simple with one row and then a small freezer section inside. We picked up some bacon, breakfast sausages, and two kinds of bratwursts. (I'm a creature of habit if you've read my other reviews.)
Bacon
With only a small space dedicated to bacon my experience tells me that bacon is not a large part of what they do. The bacon is kept behind the meat counter uncut available to slice to your desired thickness; I asked for thick cut bacon which you can see in the picture. The bacon has an average fat to meat ratio and measures about nine inches before cooking. After frying it in our pan in the Bacon Scouts kitchen the bacon shrunk to a respectable 7.5 inches. The bacon tasted quite average with nothing in particular standing out. Not much salt or smoke. A little like ham. Meat was high quality, definite freshness.
Breakfast Sausages
We cooked the breakfast sausages at the same time as the bacon along with our hearty pancakes. Much like the bacon the sausages were not remarkable lacking any smoky flavor.
Bratwursts
