TIMFOWLER7184 Just having a good time, no worries! I’ve been out of office for a while so I was just running through all the posts I missed. The only thing I’d point out is that Encapsulated Citric Acid should only be used when making a cured sausage and if you are making cured sausage then Sure Gel is a better binder. Carrot fiber helps as it will allow your product to retain more moisture but it doesn’t aid you in protein extraction like the sure gel would.

Joe Hell Jonathon

I feel like I might ban Jonathon before I banned Joe Hell ! Hahahaha!
Joe Hell if you ever do consider moving to Kansas, make sure you hit me up first. I can probably find a way to convince you to be around the action here in the greatest city in the country, Wichita, and also Walton’s!

Tex_77 They are definitely winners!

WaltonsTV: Using Tap Water When Making Sausage Meat Hacks: Using Tap Water When Making Sausage

Can I use regular tap water when making sausage? Watch the full video, read the highlights here, and then post your comments or questions below.

Can I Use Tap Water When Making Sausage

You can use tap water in making sausage, but for the best results, you need to follow a few steps to prepare the tap water.
Any process in making any meat product where you add water to a seasoning and meat product, whether that is vacuum tumbling, adding water to fresh sausage, adding water to a brine, or other meat snacks, should have very cold water used. Most tap water is at a temp of 56 to 60 degrees. The problem is that we are then going to add that 60 degree water to a meat product that should be held at 32 to 34 degrees. So, what we need to do instead of taking water directly from the tap and putting it in your sausage is to take the water and put it in the refrigerator or cooler and chill it down. That is going to accomplish two things. First, we will lower the temperature of the water and get it more in line with the meat temp so we don’t raise the temp of the meat when we add the water. Second, if it is city tap water, and there is any chlorine, while the water is resting in the cooler, the chlorine has a chance to evaporate and you then are not adding any chlorine into your meat products.

So if you are adding water to any meat products that is not already cold and distilled water, then simply place the water in an open container in your fridge to let it cool down so you don’t raise the temp of the meat once it is added and so it gives the chlorine found in most city tap water a chance to evaporate so you don’t add any chlorine to your meat products.

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Departing Contestant I’ll do it! We have excess tongue at the shop which I’m sure I would be gifted if I inquire.

Hey everyone, it was pointed out to me here that I said to not go below 21mm on smoked collagen. I should note that this is a good rule of thumb for beginners, people who have made sticks a few times and are comfortable with stuffing should feel free to use smaller sizes. I, myself usually use 19mm as it stuffs a lot easier than smaller sizes. Maybe I will do a video where I time stuffing a certain amount of meat in 21mm, 19mm and either 17 or 16mm casings to show the difference? Thanks to mtnjim for pointing this out!

Denny O recipe sounds great. Thanks 👍

Meat Hacks: Replacing a Gearbox for Walton's Stuffer

Learn how to replace a gearbox for a Walton's Stuffer with Walton's and Meatgistics. Watch the video, read the guide, and then post your questions or comments below.

Meat Hacks

Learn how to replace a gearbox for a Walton’s Stuffer?
The first thing you are going to do is remove the canister from the base. Then you are going to unscrew the piston from the arm. Now you want to unscrew the four screws on the bottom of the housing and remove that plate. Next you remove the arm through the bottom of the gear housing, once it is cranked all the way down it should come out fairly easily if you pull it towards the back of the machine. Next you want to unscrew the 4 screws the side without the handle, these are metric bolts so you will want to use 14mm socket or wrench. You want to remove the bolts on the side without the handle, before you unscrew the two bolts on the side with the handle you will want to hold the gear box from the bottom, it normally will not fall out by itself but better safe than sorry. Now you pull the gear housing down and away from the side with the handle, the housing should come out fairly simply.

To replace this you will put the new gearbox in the same way you took the old one out but only loosely tighten the bolts back down to make it easier to make any adjustments later. Put the screws back in on the side and the bottom of the housing and then put the arm back up through the bottom. Now you want to check a few things before you go any further. You want the two small attachments for the handle to be as evenly centered in their holes as possible, if they are out of whack this can cause some grinding between the gears and the arm. So once your holes are centered check to make sure your arms is coming out the top in the center of that hole as well. If not loosen the bolts further and make adjustments by pushing or pulling the bolts that the crank attaches to until everything is centered. Now tighten everything back down and you are good to get back to making sausages!

Make sure you subscribe to WaltonsTV and remember to tap the bell next to the subscribed button to get notified about all new videos, plus like and comment on this video, and visit waltonsinc.com and meatgistics.com to find Everything But The Meat! Thanks for watching Meatgistics. I’m Jonathon with WaltonTV and I’ll see you guys next time!

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How to Sharpen Kitchen Knives? - Meat Hacks

Learn which sharpener you should be using in your Kitchen with Walton's and Meatgistics. Watch the video, read the guide, and then post your questions or comments below.

Meat Hacks

Comparing knife sharpeners
Nothing makes processing as annoying or as difficult as a dull knife. When you can’t slice cleanly through a piece of meat you are damaging your product, adding processing time, and most importantly putting yourself in danger. You might have heard me say that sharp knives do not cause accidents, dull ones do! It’s true; a sharp knife will easily slice into whatever cut of meat you want, while a dull will skip or slip, and then whoops, here we go to the emergency room! We sell numerous sharpeners that are designed to keep your cutlery in tip-top shape so we are going to review and compare a few of them for you.

Most of the knives in your kitchen are just going to be slightly dull, not seriously damaged, or have a truly rounded edge so we have purposefully dulled some knives here to the same degree as what you would typically find in a kitchen. We will be testing them before and after with the paper test which is an easy way to see if a knife is sharp. If the knife passes through the paper cleanly and easily it is nice and sharp; if it pulls or tears the paper, then it is still dull.

Multi-Cut Steel

The Multi-Cut Steel is more abrasive than an ordinary steel; it also has these grooves, which will help sharpen it up. When we try the paper test on this knife, it grabs the paper instead of slicing cleanly through it. Let’s try running it ten passes a side on the Multi-Cut steel. We want to make sure we are doing one side and then the other so we do not push the edge one way or the other too much. After about a minute of using this steel, this knife is slicing cleanly through the paper, with no tears or pulls. This was a nice and easy way to get us from a dull knife to a nice and sharp one.

Chef's Choice 310

Chef’s Choice is a popular name in home sharpening, and the Chef’s Choice 120 is their economy model. The 120 works in two stages; the first stage has an orbiting diamond sharpening surface which helps sharpen and set the angle of the edge, and then the second stage is finer and hones the edge. The first stage will take quite a long time the first time you use a knife with this sharpener. This is because it wants to reset the angle of the blade, as the sharpener can only do one angle. You will have to make 15-20 passes a side with your knife. The good news is that according to the instructions, you only need to do this one time per knife. Subsequent sharpenings will only require 3-4 passes in stage one. So, I made 20 passes a side in stage 1, and 3 passes a side in stage two, and the knife passes pretty cleanly through the paper. This took a little longer than the steel, but still did a fairly nice job.

The Swiss Sharp Handheld Sharpener from Victorinox is an inexpensive sharpener from a well-respected brand. It has a groove at the end of the handle with two angled pieces of metal to sharpen the knife as you pull it through. As you pull the knife through, you can hear the metal being shaved off and see some metal shavings. This did a surprisingly good job on this knife with minimal effort.

The Tru-Hone is what we use to sharpen our customers’ knives when they send them in, and believe me when I tell you nothing else going to work as well or as quickly as this. It puts a great edge on any blade with minimal fuss. A blade that just needs a basic sharpening will be done a minute, but it does have the ability to restore extremely dull knives or ones with large nicks in them. The only downside of this unit is that at just over $1,100, it is out of most people’s price range. We have a knife here in need of some basic sharpening, so we are going to follow the simple and easy process that tru-hone recommends. We will do three passes with the bevel set to the Red knob and the speed at a 7, then move the bevel knob to the white setting and do two more passes at a 7 speed. Finally, we are going to move the bevel down to the blue knob and move the speed down to a 3, and very lightly pass the blade through. If, at this point, we are not satisfied with our blade, we will just repeat the process. But after a single run through this process, you can see that this knife is razor sharp. Just to show you what this sharpener can do, we have a knife here that we have intentionally ground down to have no edge. We are going to make ten passes through the first and second steps and then 3 through the third. After going through these steps, this is razor-sharp again!
 
So of the four, the Tru-Hone clearly does the best job, but for now, let’s set that aside as the price point makes it a little unrealistic to have in your home kitchen. Between the Chef’s Choice and Swiss Sharp Sharpener, I liked the Swiss Sharp better. It did an excellent job with very little effort, and it is about 1/3 of the price. The best of these three, though, was the Muli-Cut Steel. It worked beautifully, is easy to use, and is more versatile than either the Chef’s Choice or the Swiss Sharp.
 
For our product review, we have the Hexarmuor NXT cut-resistant glove. A lot of cut-resistant gloves are bulky and make it awkward to handle a knife for long periods. The Hexarmour is nice and thin, so I retain pretty much full range of motion and dexterity. It has an additional coating that exceeds ISEA level 5 cut protection on the palm and first three fingers, where most accidents happen. We just sharpened this knife, and I can press down and saw pretty hard, and it is nowhere near to breaking through the glove. It also has the added benefit of being poke resistant, where it has this extra coating. Again, I can stab at my hand with some pretty serious force, and my hand is protected. So, do yourself a favor and add a Hexarmour NXT glove to your next order from Walton’s, they are only $20.99 and can prevent a trip to the emergency room!

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Jonathon AF2E2350-E050-4FFA-B428-A335AA68A025.jpeg so this strip is starting at 12.6 pounds going to try for 28 days this will be in a fridge not opened I’m going to get another strip tomorrow and bag it the same way and hold it for 28 days in a fridge that’s open and closed all day long.

WaltonsTV: Using A Meat Binder To Make A Better Meat Product Meat Hacks: Using A Meat Binder To Make A Better Meat Product

What does it mean when we say "meat binding"? Watch the full video, read the highlights here, and then post your comments or questions below.

What Are Meat Binders, What Do They Do, and Why to Use Meat Binders?

A lot of people ask us what is meat binding and why do you want to mix until the meat gets sticky? What we are doing with mixing and ultimately meat binding, is we are trying to extract protein. You can tell that your protein extraction is beginning because your meat will become sticky. Protein extraction is going to allow the proteins in the meat to encapsulate fat and hold fat and water together in the final sausage or product. Meat binders help cover fat particles and have a strong affinity for water, which holds more water and then keeps fat from clumping together. Then, the protein holds onto itself like velcro, around the fat particles. Good protein extraction will also allow the meat block to bind better to the sausage casing and reduce the tendency for fat to migrate to the outer layer of the sausage, or as some people say, fat-out. Having a good protein extraction and meat bind will help with increased juiciness from retained water, provide a better mouth feel, give your product a better appearance, and make the product have better slice-ability if you’re slicing summer sausage, deli or lunch meats.

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Benefits Of Using Deer & Wild Game Rinse Benefits Of Using Deer & Wild Game Rinse

Learn why using Deer & Wild Game rinse can improve your meat processing with Walton's and Meatgistics. Read the highlights here, and then post your comments or questions below.

Excalibur Deer & Wild Game Rinse Carcass Spray Additive What Is Deer & Wild Game Rinse?

This special blend of additives from Excalibur Seasoning is designed to protect and assist in limiting bacteria growth on your wild game before you can get your meat processed either at home or by your local butcher. It is used as a carcass spray, mixed at a ratio of 8 oz per 1 gallon of water. Simply mix and dissolve the additive in water and spray on the carcass both inside and outside, especially concentrating on the wound area.

How Does Deer & Wild Game Rinse Work?

It works by lowering the pH of the meat, stopping bacteria reproduction, and inhibiting mold growth. It also prevents browning caused by oxidation. Since this product is a very low cost item and it helps produce a much safer and higher quality meat product, every hunter ought to have this in their hunting gear for all their wild game processing.

What Is In Deer & Wild Game Rinse?

Ingredients: Salt, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate, Maltodextrin, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Bisulfite. Contains Sulfites

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How to Twist Sausage Links - Meat Hacks

Learn How to Link Sausage with Walton's and Meatgistics. Watch the video, read the guide, and post your questions or comments below.

Meat Hacks

How to Link Sausage
So, you’ve gone through the process of making some fresh sausage, ground the meat, seasoned it, and stuffed it, and now you are getting ready to link it. Well, if you’ve never done it before, we will show you how to do it with a few different types of casings and show you three different techniques.

I will go over the most basic way to link them first. Grab your rope by the very end and pinch it down where you want the casing to begin, then with your other hand, grab the casing about 5 inches down from that. If you like a little shorter brats, then keep it closer, or for longer, move it a little further down. Now pinch the casing down at that point and start rolling the casing towards yourself with your finger. How many times you will need to spin it depends on how tightly or loosely you stuffed your casings.

If your casings are popping after just a twist or two, you have overstuffed them. Next, fold the now-formed sausage down your rope and start a new pinch where the first one ended, this will help you keep some uniformity to your lengths. Now begin to twist it in the opposite direction as you did the first one. So if you started by twisting your first one towards you, then twist the next one away from you. Continue this process until you have made it all the way down your rope. If you are using collagen, I like to freeze them at this point before I cut them as this will help the collagen stay in place a little more, and you need to freeze them before vac packing them anyway, or they will get crushed. If you use cellulose casings, you need to tie them closed.

A slightly quicker way to do this is to skip a link. So start as you would above, but when you move on to the second link, pinch it where the first link ended but then fold it again and pinch it where that link will end, all while still holding that first pinch you made. Now, you twist them in the opposite direction as the first, and you will be making two links simultaneously. Just continue this down the rope until you are done. This is the method I generally use.

The third one is a bit advanced, but it gives you nice uniform links and looks pretty impressive. Just like the first two methods, make your first link and then fold it over the rope so your second link is the same size. Then pinch this area down and wrap some of the casing at the end of the first link around where you have pinched. Then spin the two links that are now making an oval shape a few times. Next, take the rope hanging down from the two brats and bring it up to the top of them, where the twist is. Pinch this down, fold it over and through the oval at the twist, and then pull the rope through the oval. Now fold the rope down along the oval and pinch it, pull it up, and at this point, your oval should be hanging below the link you just pinched. Now let the rest of the rope hang down and pinch that where it meets your previous oval, now twist the new oval you have just created and pull the rope up to the top of that, where you will pinch it and then fold the rope over and through the oval again, creating your second link. Continue this process until you have done the entire rope.

So those are the three ways we hand-link sausages here. Each gives you uniformity which is important for appearance and packaging. Another nice thing about hand linking is if you have under-stuffed some casings like I have here, you can give it a few extra twists to tighten it up. Remember, an under-stuffed casing is preferable to an overstuffed casing as it is easier to give it a few extra twists than to deal with a blowout after your stuffing has been completed!

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