Hosshess One thing, if you sous vide them the entire time you wont get any drying out of the way and the meat will just cook in the liquid that they expel from the meat. Id recommend starting off for at least 1-2hours in your oven.
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I have a question about summer sausage. My smoker is out of service at the moment but I have meat (antelope with pork for fat) ready to process. I plan to finish the grind, mix in spices (summer unit with jalapenos + sure cure) jalapeño flakes, HT cheddar cheese, ECA and stuff in fibrous casing. In the absence of the smoker I am adding liquid smoke to get some of the flavor elements. For thermal I am intending to sous vide the sticks in vac bags. Concerned that if I start at 170 for the whole cook I will get fat-out and perhaps cause other issues. Does anyone have a recommended cook schedule or experience for this format of thermal processing? The ability to essential pasteurize at lower temps (140-142 for 2.5-3 hours) is part of why I am going this route.
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Due to the temperature range of my smoker, I have to plan ahead to do summer sausage. Which means, early morning smoke when it’s calm out.
My question is, can I stuff my casings the night before, including the encapsulated citric acid, and then put them in the fridge overnight and into the smoker the next morning? Are there any precautions to take in doing so (wrapping, covering, etc.)? Does it matter than I’m using smaller diameter casings?
Appreciate the help!
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Anyone have a good recipe for smoking pork butts for pulled pork that uses apple juice in the brine? My son graduates this year and I’m doing some for his party. My Dad always used apple juice but I dont know what else. He never wrote out his recipes, and he passed away before I could get them all from him. I’m sure I can figure out something, but a little help would be appreciated.
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Question about the PK100 smoker. Back and forth about buying one but I would like to know a few things from those who actually own one.
I have two main worries.
Temperature fluctuation. I have a MES40 now and the temps from top to bottom are all over the place, sometimes a 25° spread. That’s just not going to work for me.
Smoke output. For smoking snack sticks or cured sausage at a low temp, I’m curious if that’s even hot enough to burn the sawdust to smoke? If I have to run it at 225 or even higher, that would defeat the purpose of what I want to use it for.
Any input would be greatly appreciated as this is not a cheap purchase.
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Going to be making venison summer sausage here soon and have already ordered all the goodies needed to make it.
However, my conundrum is the smoke temperature in that I’m not sure I can keep my smoker at a consistent temperature below 180* unless I cracked the door or something. I have a Masterbuilt pro series propane smoker, it’s a pretty big box.
What would be the best route to go with this? Just keep it as low as I can? Crack the door? Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!
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Well, it seemed like there was some interest in following along with us this year, so I’m going to start this post and add to it as we go through the season.
To start, a little background on the team. There’s 5 of us - myself, my wife, and 3 other guys - who all were athletes at various levels when we were younger. As we got older and fatter, playing soccer, basketball and football were becoming less of a possibility at a competitive level, and were looking for an outlet for that competitive spirit.
So, in 2012, we signed up to compete in the American Royal World Series of BBQ. This is the largest BBQ competition in the world, drawing teams from Europe, Asia, and all over North America to compete here in KC for a world championship. We didn’t think we’d do anything like win that our first time out, and we were excited to have a weekend with the boys (plus my wife) and hang out and have some beers while making food.
Well, we didn’t win. We didn’t come close. But we did beat 20% of the field and had an absolute blast doing it. We decided to keep going forward and do a few more of these the next year.
Fast forward to today, and we have evolved. We realized there’s a lot cheaper ways to drink beer with your friends, and that if we wanted to keep doing these things we needed to get serious about it, or quit. We chose to get serious. We have been that way for about 3 years now, and we finished last year ranked 24th overall in the world, and 8th in pork, and in the top 20 in brisket and ribs, and top 50 in chicken #frickenchicken
So I’ll be chronicling our adventures this year, which already is promising to be interesting. I did a steak contest last weekend, and we have our first BBQ comp this weekend, and a double the weekend after. After that the next 5 we were scheduled to do have either moved their date, or postponed still due to the pandemic (no comment). I wonder if some of them are looking for a reason to not do it, but I also know that a lot of these are put on by either non-profits or city parks departments, etc, and none of them can really afford the bad press that comes with holding a food contest during a pandemic and then people potentially getting sick. Plus, many rely on the public turnout to turn a profit, so I get it.
In the next post, I will recap the steak contest I cooked last weekend, including some pics. Thank you to everyone who reads a follows along, and if you want to hit us up on the socials we are @meatrushmorebbq on everything, but mainly Facebook and Instagram.
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I’m doing 160# of pork shoulder for my son’s wedding next week. Looking for some bulk rub as I’m not sure how much I’ll need. I found “Roast Pork Seasoning Rub from Newly Weds Foods” in the seasoning section. Is this good for pulled pork? The description isn’t very specific. Any suggestions on amount of rub I’d need would be greatly appreciated.
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Has anyone finished any jerky in the sous vide. At what temperature did you pull from smoker. Am making some tomorrow have not made any jerky in A long time.
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I think I’ve found the best charcoal briquettes I am aware of on the market, that being B&B Oak briquettes. I’ve used Kingsford Professional before and in my opinion B&B is superior. B&B briquettes are considerably larger than Kingsford and I think burn hotter. Is anyone else using B&B? Anyone have an opinion on Royal Oak briquettes?
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I am really considering the PK 100 for making summer sausages. I used my analog cookshack this weekend with pretty good results but it did not want to produce much smoke at 125-145 degrees. I used 2oz of wood chunks. It kept the temps just right (I use a Thermoworks ThermaQ with grate clips attached to the casing ends).
#1, Do the sawdust smokers work better at 125-145 at producing smoke than chunk burners? I know that once I hit 175 degrees on the cookshack, it rolls smoke out of the blow hole for 10-12 hours.
#2, How well does the PK 100 do at smoking briskets and ribs? This will be the other use I will use it for monthly. My cookshack only has 14x14 shelve and I would like to do ribs whole and brisket whole if possible.
#3, What is the downside to the smoker only going to 250 degrees and not to 325 or so. I have only used my cookshack to do pork butts and I just use 225 for them. I sold my 36" offset and not looking for a stick burner.
Does anyone have pics of the PK with ribs/ briskets loaded and finished products?
I just don’t see much info the the PK around the web like other smokers out there.
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I was on the Pro Smoker web site looking at their product specs. I noticed that the product capacity of this smoker seemed overly optimistic to me. Aside from that, it looks like a solid, well built smoker.
Has anyone actually tested their PK-100 with 100 lbs of summer sausage or any of the other listed product capacities?
Two things:
It doesn’t appear their is enough physical space to put that much product in the smoker. 2) With a 1250 watt element, it doesn’t appear you would have adequate power to bring that much product up to temperature.
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How much per pound would you use in summer sausage or snack sticks.
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Just finishing up the last few pounds of my chicken jalapeno summer sausage. Bring it in to sous vide when it hits 150 degrees. If you make chicken summer sausage you really have to get good protein extraction. I also use sure gel for chicken. I use soy protein for my pork sausages, just seems to work well with pork.
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Is smoke on a snack stick a do or die thing? Do people must have a smoke flavor on their sticks? Im thinking about doing the cook schedule without adding smoke. Are there certain flavors that you may not want smoke? For example i will be doing ranch and fajita. The thought of smoke on those is, eh! Also going to be doing Bourbon Peppercorn ( my favorite), willies, pizza and mandarin teriyaki. Just wondering if the flavors would pop more without smoke. Also anyone add extra ingredients beside the normal seasoning to these flavors?
KEEP THE BURN ON THE COALS NOT ON THE MEAT!!
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I have never done a pork butt in my smoker before (mastercraft propane vertical). I have everything else figured out, but nowhere do I see whether or not anyone uses a tray of water in the bottom for moisture. I see that after developing a bark, people spritz the meat with a spray bottle every 15 to 30 minutes, with 1 cup of Apple Cider Vinegar and 1 cup of water. So my only question is… water tray when smoking, or no water tray? Thanks! John
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Can someone point me in the direction of finding the internal dimensions of the current model PK100 smoker? I see the external dimensions on the website and it looks like the width and depth should be close to the 17x18 Inch rack size, but I see no mention of the internal ceiling to floor, distance between the ceiling and the bottom catch tray, and the distance between shelves.
I currently have a Cookshack smoker I bought in 2006 and usually do 4 butts at a time for small catering events and family gatherings. I am looking for a larger Cookshack type smoker that I can hang summer sausage in during deer season. I would like to do the 20 inch length casings and hang them from the top shelf like I have seen others do on this forum.
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