Canadian bacon ham, brown sugar clove allspice cure

21st Anniversary. Wife said she would rather eat my cooking at home, so I cancelled the steakhouse and got cooking!

Tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, avocado in balsamic vinegar and olive oil

Scallops, seared with a brown butter dill gewurtztraminer deglaze reduction.
With my own cold smoked salmon.

NY Strip steak, with grilled zucchini and asparagus, sauteed green beans, and rosemary roasted red potatoes. With bernaise sauce. Steak was sous vide to 128 then hickory smoked at 150 then reverse seared.

All served with a cabernet sauvignon. I even remembered to get flowers and card!

Reuben with my 1st pastrami for dinner! Everyone loved it.

Salmon, salt and sugar brined then hot smoked.
Dill Hollandaise sauce with my lemons.
Grilled asparagus and zucchini with lemon and garlic.
Sushi rice, dill style: sprinkled with coriander salt, sugar, vinegar, with turmeric and fresh dill.
Pink Moscato sparkling wine in honor of tonight’s “pink moon”.
Lemons and oranges from my trees.

My wife is making a roadtrip, so I made her and daughter some brisket breakfast tortillas to eat and take with. Fried white corn tortillas, scrambled eggs with lots of cheese in them, and a slice of brisket!
Also checked her tire pressures, oil, and coolant, so I’m in good graces with her this morning!

My polish sausage, hot smoked. Quick seared.
Marianski recipe, 32mm hog casings, frozen pork stock instead of water, 1.5x garlic. Served with Colman’s English mustard.

Brussel sprouts, blanched then face fried in oil til crispy, tossed in balsamic vinegar/brown sugar/coriander-salt syrup.

Mac and cheese: Kraft, but reheated with Queso, cream, truffle salt, cayenne.

Cheery tomato salad with pickling cucumbers and sweet Maui onion with a vinaigrette.

… I was supposed to make Canadian bacon today, bought the loin, then got hungry.

Terry Kostiw
TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ answer: use nonfat dry milk, not whole.

I did a bunch of reading on dry milk over last 2 weeks. There is not much hard data… a LOT of internet posts by folks following recipes, but very little if any I could find from meat scientists. Data from recipe makers is fine, if they ever once ran a test of “make one with dry whole, one with dry nonfat, here are results”, or even just allude to past experience saying they HAD made such batches. But that believable post from a reliable source didn’t exist in the top 500 google hits under various searches (<<turns out google prioritizes general reader content, only once I got links for Dairy Science journals did I find good info). I’m sure many experienced sausage makers have done it, they just aren’t posting about it much. Maybe because every recipe already directs the use of non-fat, so they figure it’s covered? Don’t know.

Here is what I found, reading posts on the chemistry.

1. Dry milk, while vs. Non fat-- USE THE NONFAT. The binding comes from the sugar lactose, which in nonfat makes up 50% of the product. Other components can be milk are 35 % proteins like caseinate, also a good binder and emulsifier.
   The “binding” comes from ability to hold water without it breaking loose at cooking temps. The fat binding comes from fat being coated in these protein water structures and held in place, apparently by a loose bond to the lactose-water structure and milk proteins, though this bond was just referred to, I haven’t seen any writeups on the molecular structure or bonding sites.
   –the two references I read on milk fat said the included fat took up bonding from the meat fats, and reduced the efficiency of the meat fat bonding
   – also mentioned, milk fat soft at room temps, did not survive the bond at cooking temps. No chemistry shown for that one.
   – lastly was the rancidity issue, apparently granulating and drying milk fat massively exposes it to O2 and leads to easy oxidation, and difficulty of storage in normal bags and for lengthy times.

2. My main interest was actual data showing a difference between “hi temp dry milk” sold by sausage makers, and “low temp dry milk”, normal stuff sold in all stores. Difference being production temperatures of 130ish vs. 160ish. It is said the low temp common version doesn’t bind sausage as well, leading to some posters saying not at all. Apparently preheat temperature prior to spray drying process changes the product protein structures, or nature of lactose. I’m sure there is a study in the meat science literature but I haven’t found it yet… (edit, found some good research, will post below)

Anyways, sorry for long answer, your question just happened to coincide with a curent research interest;) I use a lot of dry milk for weekly yogurt, like you I’m wondering if I can just stock one version.

mrobisr congrats, well deserved!
GWG8541 also congrats!
I’ve very much enjoyed both your posts and always look forward to your comments.

This is a pretty amazing thing Walton’s is doing, I guess I should just say Austin and Jonathon . What an impressive and thoughtful community building step. It makes me feel darn good just to see this happen and read about it, puts a big smile on my face.

Cinco de Mayo!
Pork Butt on smoker, brown sugar/cumin/garlic rub, half for pulled pork and half diced up for carnitas.
Corn tortillas, guacamole, fresh pico de gallo, queso fresca. White sweet corn. Bud Lime with limes. Lime cilantro cole slaw.

Made kabanosy today. Marianski called it “the best meat stick in the world,” in his book. So that got me interested.

I used the recipe in Marianski’s book “Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages”. It is pretty simple: pork, 1.8% salt, 0.25% cure1, 0.2% black pepper, 0.1% each of sugar, nutmeg and caraway. 10% water. So for 1000g meat, that is 18g salt, 2g pepper etc.

Recipe uses sheep casings, but I used 21-23mm fresh collagen casings, which are the closest thing to actual sheep casings. I was happy with the Walton’s casings, very delicate. Here they are at top, next to some pepperoni 19mm sticks I also made tonight, to compare casings. Both thru a 12.7mm or half inch tube.

Short cook, 60 min light smoke then 30 min at higher temp to 155-160 IT. I used my pretty new Smokin It 3.5 smoker with about 2oz of cherry wood. Unfortunately I trusted the smokers meat probe and pulled it at 161f. Got inside and crosschecked with 3 Thermoworks digital thermometers, all at 132 f So lesson learned, don’t trust the smoker probe and always crosscheck. Had to put it all back on and cook another 1.5 hrs.

Taste is good and interesting. Apparently you dry these out a bit, about a week is supposed to be where most like them. Not sure I’d say they were better than beef venison sticks with Willie’s seasoning. But they are pretty unique and I never made a 100% pork stick before. I will report after a week or so in fridge drying a bit.

RafterW great color, looks nuce and crispy!

Just finished freezing/storing 28 lbs of various bacon… Everything I cook has to have bacon or ham in it now! We had bacon for bfast, now for dinner Canadian bacon Fried Rice w shrimp!

RafterW great picture!

GWG8541 great looking burger with all the right basics. I love them that way.

Just for completeness, the finished products:
Bacon:

Buckboard bacon (butt/shoulder)

Canadian bacon (pork loin)

John Belvedere ok first, great job on the remodel! That kitchen looks great!
Jerky looks great too.
Is that a mailbox cold smoke generator?! AWESOME!

HerbcoFood You are like the chef a medieval king would take with him while traveling the country lol! That is definitely a classy meal for the banks of a river.

RafterW thanks for all the details on your cook, can’t wait to tell my brother in law about the “butt juice”, I already know he will love that idea as well as the name!

wdaly looks great! I think pellet grills do a fantastic job on pizzas, nice wood fired flavor and high heat. I HAVE messed a few up after cooking a pork butt and forgetting to change out foil and clean any fat up… the high pizza heat ignites that fat and gives a lot of black smoke. So trust me, don’t leave that greasy foil in there heh!

gus4416 thx, the flavor and color are good when cooked.
tarp making bacon and eggs for family now! I can see we will go through all this pretty fast.