glen I agree it sucks

processhead Haven’t been on that one yet. Looks and sounds like 2 good days.

Shoprat53 would you be willing to share your chicken jalapeño summer sausage recipe? I want to venture into making chicken summer sausage. Have you had any issues with your cold smoke process? What size casing are you using? Thanks!

Jonathon thanks for the info, going to make Walton’s hot links again with some changes from the tips trying to reduce tough hog casings. Going to use Walton’s smoke time and temp listed for smoke sausage smoking. A couple of questions

How long is best guess to soak hog casings before stuffing? Looks like best to pull at 160 but ice water bath when pull or just hang at room temp for an hour plus?
Thanks

Ridley Acres It worked for me on some pellets I had stored for a few months
I wouldn’t put them in with anything else that had liquid content, they could possibly retain or absorb more water.
The dehydrator works too, not as fast and you have to sift the dust off of the pellets going in but you can dry a greater quantity

lkrfletcher Bob Stehlik and any other @Colorado user may be interested in this:

86ae8350-a56c-4a29-ae59-cf81fccfbeb5-image.png

https://www.grafeauction.com/event/black-forest-bison

Jonathon Thanks for confirming that. I suspected that it might be an old image but wanted to verify with the someone who knew for sure.

Thanks ya,ll
got her percolating right now empty, amazing whats happened thus far, with two probes, 1 in the center of the chamber an one next to the smokers built in probe It is within 3 degrees now, with the water pan plumb full, it took an hour or so the stabilize, I have nver had those two spots that close in temp… seems to be improving…

Tex_77 That’s what I ended up doing when we got about half thru the links. The problem I have is that I am not usually able to get started on projects like this until after we clean up from dinner. I grid everything one evening, stuffed links the next night, then patties then next. It didn’t seem like they were firm enough by the time we got cleaned up each night, so we held overnight in the freezer and that was first operation the following day once I got home from work.

I was mixing in 10-12lb batches by hand, and that really slowed me down. Next year I’ll have me a meat mixer, and hopefully a space that I can leave everything setup while we are in processing mode.

Jonathon very valid point.

chippewa Thanks, if you have done this that’ll answer my question.

Jonathon Did you ever hear back with more information on this topic?

Dave in AZ Spot-on, chap, as always!

Surg did you use hot brine or is it a cold and slow brine. Did you add any dill?

bocephus At least you found the wheel…

Not that you need one more, but I have an Anova at the recommendation of some here in the community. I have had no problems with it. I picked it up at COSTCO Online, but they do not show up on their website anymore. I got the kit with the tub and lid.
https://anovaculinary.com/products/anova-precision-cooker

I am with Idaho Smokey I think the reason for the differences is the difference between cure #1 and cure #2. Cure #2 has nitrates and nitrites. The nitrates break down into nitrites, which break down into nitric oxide which provides the curing power. So, because we are holding for a shorter period of time than normal for using cure #2 they might have been calculating it by the amount of Nitrites in the cure, knowing that all the nitrate wont break down into nitrites in that time. However, the nitrates in cure #1 are a very small amount…it seems like a lot of cure for a 4 lb roast.

Jonathon did you like it? Was it tender? What temp. In smokehouse? One more thing, what breed is your dog? Our kids are thinking about getting a dog that looks a lot like yours.

Denny O I hear you. Our’s are in Denver and Phoenix.

Denny O I hand wash mine also, quick and easy to do.

processhead thx Paul! Now just keep on me until I fire my brewing rig up again!

gus4416 said in 25lb batch of Colorado Beef Jerky:

Jamieson22 not much left

Yeah about 7lbs out of probably about 12lb from 25lb raw. Makes you understand why store jerky can be so expensive. Well, actually why it SHOULD be.

deweymeats When I lived in MN I would smoke turkeys in Dec. My parents had a corner in the back of their house and the dryer vent was there, the snow would not pile in the corner and I would put my charcoal smoker there and was protected from wind. It worked pretty good.

lgnick Welcome to the community.

bocephus that’s a great idea. I also like to measure things out ahead of time.

I did notice the gel, but I am very focused on anything added that I taste, its subtle, but I know its there, just like the non-fat dry milk I have used forever
In my deer links etc, it has that “ dairy” taste…. Not a deal breaker, I followed the directions, I only use 1/2 the suggested of the other milk powder, or, I taste it,
With BP- special binder there is absolutely -0- taste, but its binding power is very strong,
Now, how do I fix that smoker,😂

My order from Tuesday live.

Tueslive15 worked but bha50 did not.

Can both be used together?

OK, saw videos about cold smoking with wood “dust” and was smitten. Gotta do some salmon at true cold temps and what better time, than in the winter.

The grand daddy of wood dust burning setups is the ProQ, but they are spendy and lots of Amazon knock offs. Mine is a spiral and for the first 4 hours, was doing great. Then it jumped, or rather penetrated the barrier (which just as in the ProQ, is mesh and a little amazing that it works).

Subsequently lots of smoke and burned up the 18 hour spiral in about 4 more hours.

My wood dust is just pellets that I watered down to cause them to disintegrate, and then dryed back out. They seem very “dusty”. Sawdust is plenty fine I think. Maybe too fine or too dusty?

Anyone have experience? The specialty sawdust is kind of expensive.

WiscoHunter1995 welcome aboard.

wvotrfan I could go for that.

Guess it’s better than being ripped apart and bleeding out.

Retired IT professional for 42 years

jakeanderton congrats. They look great 👍

woodchuck777 Kind of like how you do some Virginia hams & certainly salted Mullet. Good idea. I think milk works good too, like for fish, etc.

Jonathon bocephus wvotrfan, good Eyes & good job.

hankus46
I’ll check out the binder snd fiberous casing and smoke and will also reduce grind size.
Thanks again

NelsonMV We all learn from mistakes whether our own or someone else’s post. I know I have gained so much knowledge from this sight over the years.

johnsbrewhouse that was a good catch John. I thought it was an odd post. On;y thing I use powdered milk for is sausage and making a hot chocolate mix.

hankus46
Thx:) However, it sounds like you’re more experienced than me probably! I’ve just done small 1kg ones.
But I dont see any reason you can’t vacuum tumble at all. Not sure about replacing the mixing… tumbling is usually intended to spread injection liquid around inside large hams or bacon. Mixing on other hand is intended to extract protein, which is really what you want for formed hams. The meat chunks are small enough to cure from outside pretty quick. But I’m sure tumbling also extracts protein, just not sure it actually adds anything to formed ham.

Love to hear how it goes!

lamurscrappy Always good to look at some older posts, occasionally I select the random tab in topics just to see where it will take me.

The Streets are from my hometown, Indianola IA. My cousin was neighbors with them.
I was headed to the U of I 50 years ago this fall

twilliams I completely agree that visually it is not appealing at all, but I would still try it. At work several of us have agreed to try whatever we bring, at least one bite and well some have been very good, and others were stand by the trash can just in case.

kyle My son got me one for my birthday recently. It lasted a day. I’ve always got stuff to stock up on.

chippewa That was the thinking to begin with.

werskirs Good Luck, hope you can convince her. If I lived closer, it wouldn’t be for sale any longer.

Thank you for the help! When asking my wife, she says she wants no “tanginess”. Seals the deal for me; no ECA.

Deepwoodsbutcher look up the “labels and more” store on e-bay. They have everything you can think of for labels.

I didn’t know there was a burrito season, I eat them year round.

Dave in AZ said in What does Willies taste like?:

I just re-read the thread title, and laughed and laughed…

Dave I think an “A” has been edited out of the title to clean it up a bit. 😂 😂 😂

chippewa I don’t know when you were by last but it sounds to me like there has been quite the change. They even purchased the property across the street too, the old sale barn.

Dave in AZ Thanks Dave!
It is the process that an item is cured changes the amount mostly, then the product has to fit the process. Does that boil it down to a simplified answer?

HerbcoFood filled with Jiffy!

Jonathon yeah, that’s how they describe hikers to their friends

I have had to do the same thing. You will need to add more water to the mix in order to stuff it or you may hurt or even brake your stuffer.

dawg This is exactly why those billionaires are all invested in the lab meat and insect production it is all by design. I do believe that this is why those same people have bought so much farmland, because they will still be able to get the fertilizer, chemicals, and raise livestock for their own consumption and profit. The tyrant’s playbook has never changed, power and money are always at the heart of the matter.

Dave in AZ Jesser

Exactly what Dave said. I have my recipe in an Excel sheet, so it’s scalable based on meat block. It just happens to show it at 2.25 lbs or roughly 1kg. When I’ve seen recipes, both here and on some Polish sausage making websites, base recipes seem to be always based on 1kg of meat, so that was the reason that amount was shown.

When I originally put the recipe in, where is says 5 lbs, is just hardcoded text.

I am getting ready to smoke two pieces of bacon tomorrow and I used the Sweeter than Sweet cure adjusted to 1.33 lbs per gallon for a pickle. On the ‘How to make bacon’ video they recommend using 1.52 lbs per gallon of the Country Brown sugar cure in a pickle but the Sweeter than Sweet cure has a higher nitrite concentration which is why I adjusted the weight of the cure down from the 1.52 lbs/gal suggested cure. I am sure you could adapt the recipe to use it as an injection w/enhancers. Hopefully , someone else will chime in with a direct application addressing your desired process.

johnsbrewhouse The problem with the Excalibur MRT sugar cure is that it has both nitrate and nitrite in it so that rules it out for making bacon.

When are you going to do a pod cast or live stream with a live audience?

Local brewery? Even just on the sales floor and interact with the customers in the store or other staff?

dawg That is the bottle of oil i got for the bamboo boards. Not it. bocephus While that is not the goal, I guess it is having that effect!

Kalebtrojacek can’t ask for better than that. Looks great 👍 congrats.

Denny O this is how I figure it out. The 75% is 75% of 100%. The 25% is 25% of 100%. So if we have 100lbs. Of meat, 75 pounds is lean meat, 25lbs. Is fat. So if I added the 25lbs. Of fat to the 75 lbs. Of lean, I’ll have 100lbs.

jblick21 that should make you a great smoker. Congrats and good luck 👍

Whoop Whoop!! 80 to 76 final

Spmaher3 I’m with sjhuntingfool on this. I have learned that 12.5lbs of snack sticks is the max for my masterbuilt electric. Just don’t give up. You’ll get it figured out and find out it’s way worth doing. Just try smaller batches til you get a handle on it.

wdaly Definitely not perfected after my first batch but I probably wouldn’t change it much the next time.

Jonathon said in Walton's Chamber Vac Sealer:

Mcjagger It will be a month or so but we have a video coming out on this. Still being worked on though.

Jonathon thank you for your expertise. I’m looking back in time to before the German war when sausage makers choose the best temperatures for their sausage meat and their spices. Then came the war. Polish people, Jews, and others were terminated. We almost lost the sacred recipes of the past. Government agencies were in charge of what meats, spices, and temperatures were allowed. For a long time, you were only allowed pork in making kielbasa garlic sausage. Later you were allowed some beef as the story goes. If you added other ingredients it was not considered a certain sausage type. You could rename it like “Jon’s Sausage” for instance.

Yeah, the description needed to call out that the second one was 1 mil thicker and was still 1000

OleSmokey If you are wanting to do chicken, use thighs absolutely. However, I recently found an old batch of Buffalo Wing Snack sticks I did out of beef with mozzarella cheese and OH MY GOD they are amazing.

Thanks for sharing it is great people like you that make the sausage making experience fun.

I’ve had the same experience with long cook times. Over time I’ve found what works well for me. My experience has been that the sticks are very sensitive to the amount of fat added when trying to bring up to temp (160). One batch I decided to add what I thought was an excessive % of fat and when I put them on the smoker they were up to temp in less than 4 hrs (smoker never got over 190). (I ramp up the temps the same every time I cook. However, my pellet smoker will not consistently stay lit if I go below 150, so I start at that temp.)
I’m still experimenting with fat and water content but the ratio that came right up to temp was 6 lbs venison, 2lbs of lean pork butt, 2 lbs of lard (for a 10lb mix) I add the spices, cheese and pink salt based on 10lbs, and have found about 1/2 cup ice water per 1lb of mix is about right. In this case, 5 cups. Never added anything but spice mix curing salt and water.
I’ve found to its much more difficult to smoke in cold weather. I have done it, but I cover my smoker with fiberglass welding blankets from harbor freight as insulation. The more meat in the smoker, the longer it takes. My 30" x 17" smoking grill will handle 10lbs. (1 layer of sticks with some space between each stick) and I rotate them because of smoker hot spots.
Hope this helps!

Dave in AZ said in Smooth acid in pepperoni:

Lastly, a few folks HAVE left it sit overnight mixed in and said they didn’t see a texture loss. Maybe it was mrobisr. So it may work… but not a “best practice” if you can avoid.

I agree that avoiding it is best, but if you cannot I have NEVER had a problem ever, so don’t worry do what you have to do.

TCost That’s the nice part, we usually get to eat our mistakes and learn from them and try again til we get it right.

One more vote for to much protein extraction. If you are looking for moisture retention I use carrot fiber works great.

Jonathon you doing a great job! I’m half-Polish. I figured what good am I to be Polish and not make Polish sausage? I do make other sausages that aren’t Polish. I appreciate your work and what you do. A lot of the sausages I make are not in the stores.

Bunch of good information here from Dave in AZ calldoctoday and others but I would say there are 3 main reasons we want to let the cure sit in the meat overnight.
1 - safety, specifically (though not limited to) in a vacuum pack. Botulism is a nasty little b****r and it can grow JUST fine in a air-free environment, sure cure prevents it from growing
2 - flavor preservation
3 - color development and preservation

Spidey I thought that only happened to me.

I would swear that I have seen humidity or something, maybe barometric pressure have an effect on propane in the past too, but I have never been able to consistently put my finger on it & narrow it down to a science so still not sure. Who knows, outside of a lab & very controlled & monitored conditions, it is hard to say sometimes.

Jonathon In addition, dry the cheese of your choice a bit to help with its heat temperance & then freeze it before adding to your mix, late in the mix. We use other natural cheeses using this method too, just make sure you are you a harder & more aged cheese as we have had better luck with those.

Has anyone ever had a problem with 40 mm collagen ring bologna casings not wanting to peel off?

kyle said in Darn down vote button:

Denny O also I overlooked you using the “f” word in your post. I assume your talking about other sites😊

Took me a second! 🤣 🤣

djman69465 said in 80/20 ground beef extruded jerky in a dehydrator:

kyle LOL ill try and watch the my “language”.

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

Sorry if I missed it. But, I didn’t see the requirement of Sure Gel in the list. On the H Summer Sausage seasoning it tells me I should use it. Any issue with its usage coupled with my also using ECA?

Jonathon
Hurts more because I did it for a friend.
Thanks for your input.

Thank you everyone!

Jonathon thanks for your reply. I’ve given up on using the MRT cure due to the nitrate and will use some of the Sweeter than Sweet cure instead to make a pickle for these first few pork bellies I have ready for curing. I’ve done the math to correct the weight(1.33 lbs) of the cure per gallon to give me 120 ppm ingoing nitrite as per Walton’s bacon pickle recipe. I need to order some more Country Brown Sugar cure for some hams I am going to do and I will add some of the Blue Ribbon bacon cure to give it a try on the pork bellies that are next on the list for processing.

zbigjeff thanks. Usually if I am good for anything it is as a bad example…465

Dave in AZ please don’t get me wrong, they look wonderful, and I am very certain that they are. I go back to the pita pbj’s that became one of the many small tributaries to the massive river of my psychosis

jakeanderton I have the same grinder, and same problem. Traced it down to the hole in plate where the auger comes thru. A little sloppy metal to metal connection. Nothing I think you can do about it. Like smokinbubba says, just pluck it out, and keep going. It does it even when I grind frozen meat, so I don’t think it’s a heat thing. If it is, it a heat thing right at that spot.

Ridley Acres I really enjoyed your post about your hog processing. It was a real family affair. I’m from Wisconsin and I grew up with Sheboygan, Usinger’s, Klement’s and Southside Sausage brats. I looked at the ingredients in the 1503 and saw that it didn’t have sage or marjoram to give them their distinctive German flavor. I think the 1503 would be kind of plain tasting (imho).

DHardy The RH inside the smoker makes a huge difference. We bake bread, cookies, pies and such in our Traegers and the added humidity really helps. Even doing sausage & poultry it helps to keep the skin tender instead of becoming leathery. IT also helps with getting by the stall point when doing larger items, i.e. roasts, butts and summer sausage. Search Walton’s for the subject of; “Preventing and getting past the stall”. Learning to control the RH in your smoker can help improve your end result.

Mcjagger thank you!

Dave in AZ I don’t think it was me that posted that, but I have seen them come up for sale occasionally and that’s why i’m considering how to make a block of meat for such a thing.

History gets more fascinating the older I get.