I worked for 3 years in Walton's Customer Service department, I have probably spoken with a good deal of people visiting this page in one way or another! I am now working on content creation for waltonsinc.com and meatgistics.com.
Im originally from upstate New York and before I worked here I had never made homemade Sausage before. Now I love processing and the satisfaction that comes from eating a well made homemade Snack Stick, Summer Sausage, Bratwurst, etc.
I try to eat healthy and we will do some posts about healthy options here but I am not a fanatic about it, what is the use of eating healthy if you can't occasionally eat 1 or 2 Brats, okay fine 4 or 5!!?
Dylan and I did 75 lb of sausage today. 1 batch of the Salami with some dry red wine added, one of the Pepperoni and 1 of Habanero BBQ, each one was 25 lb. On all of them, we used the Bactoferm TSP-X Starter Culture. We stuffed them into Beef Middles and put them into our eller cabinet. We are going to check tomorrow to make sure we have achieved the needed pH drop and then we buckle in for the long wait!
Hey everyone, I thought I would put together a little post that would sort of encapsulate (citric acid) 2019 for Meatgistics users! It is going to be a collection of some of my favorite posts, I went through and tried to rank them on how many views, comments and votes they got but that quickly got too confusing! So, I looked at those and took them into consideration but they are by no means all I took into account!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to meatgistics this year! Your questions, responses and ultimately your purchasing of Walton’s Inc products is what lets us keep doing what we are doing! So, the countdown begins.
There are going to be more than a few people who made posts worthy of being on this list that I am leaving out (off the top of my head I can think of AdamCA craigrice raider2119 macsinsac lamurscrappy blackbetty61 and Darkfish89, though I am sure I am forgetting more than a few), and I don’t want anyone to feel offended, I am sure I missed things (I am trying to do this in between getting caught up from yesterdays livestream) so, if I missed one that you think should be on here let me know and link the post you think should be on here!
I didnt say I was going to start at 10! hotkarl s post about smoking on the job (smoking sausage) let us all see his awesome set up and even gave a new idea or two on how to finish up your product in water.
PapaSop Posted about Frozen Pizza at 4:10 and by 4:19 Austin had responded, lesson is, if you want a fast response from Austin mention frozen pizza, specifically Totinos brand!
Though it took a few tries, we were finally able to see Dave R gorgeuos ribeyes! Joe Hell and a few others chimed in with there amazing pictures of meat as well!
twilliams got the bow season off to a great start and made everyone start thinking of what they were going to do with their deer this season!
Parksider asked Austin for a map of all meatgistics members, I thought it would one of those things that we tried to figure out for months, but at the end of the day Austin had it figured out and live! For anyone who hasn’t done it yet, go to your profile and re-save your information and that will get you on the map!
JohninPa Wanted everyones opinions and ideas on what he was planning on doing that weekend and wow did he get them! We had a lot of people chime in with ideas and suggestions for him. This post is LOADED with good information for people.
This post was what was behind trying Glycerine instead of extra sugar to make tender beef jerky. And though we haven’t heard much from smcneese recently, this was a good idea!
Joe Hell s thorough breakdown of reverse sear vs sous vide covers almost every detail you can think of between the two ways of doing it!
Yes, yes, I know, technically this wasn’t this year but this is the post that introduced us to Parksider s idea of finishing up your product in water. I’d say more than any other single idea or technique, this changed the way more people do their sausage than anything else!
With 228 Posts and almost 3,000 views Tex_77 post continues to be a “must read first thing Monday morning” for myself, and many many others! It is a great place to showcase what you grilled, smoked, bbq’d or cooked this weekend and to see what creations other people have come up with!
A part of the amazing story that is Joe Hell s weight loss journey, for anyone who hasn’t checked it, and his blog, Better Living Through BBQ With Joe Hell you need to do that right away! Not only will you see some amazing pics of insane meals but you can follow along with his life-changing weight loss journey!
The long wait is over! Actually only partially, we are going to leave them in for a few more days but for the most part they are done! Pepperoni was my favorite, followed by the Salami with wine and then the Habanero BBQ which is growing on me! Then the sticks in the background are Hatch Green Chili Brat that we used 10% more seasoning on to make it work as a snack stick. We did 3 different techniques on those and will have a video on it soon!
Each week, Jon and Austin break out and critique a new beer and different sausage while they discuss everything about meat. Follow along as they talk about their favorite recipes and share some of the best expert tips and tricks for making sausage and jerky. Stay up to date on the latest news and current trends in the meat industry as Jon and Austin explore everything related to meat and more.
Jon is solo today but still drinking! Today he has Bid Idjit from Dugges Brewery and this was a serious beer! To quote an old Monty Python skit this is an excellent hand to hand beer! Filled with lots of flavor it is also extremely high in alcohol!
#1 Add humidity by adding an oversized pan and sponge or dry wick material.
- What we are trying to do here is avoid “the stall” which is when the evaporation energy matches the thermal processing energy
- Adding relative humidity makes it harder for evaporation energy to slow down the cook
- We are making it easier for the water to evaporate as we are increasing the surface area.
- During a short 4 hour period we were able to empty a very large oversized water bowl in our PK 100 Smoker with a dry wick towel.
#2 Use a binder and a meat mixer
- Protein extraction is the key to making good sausage. It prevents the fat from rendering out of the meat during the long smoking process.
- Binders help everything stick together
- Prevents fat out
- Much easier to get protein extraction with a mixer than hand though it can be done by hand as well
- All binders act differently but have similar aims. Carrot Fiber is best used for fresh sausages like bratwurst.
#2A Know your additives
-Seasoning (salt content)
-Sure Cure (botulism spores)
-Sure Gel / Super Bind / Soy Protein Blend
-Encapsulated Citric Acid
-Sodium Phosphate (maybe)
-Sodium Erythorbate (accelerator without the tang)
-Smoked meat Stabilizer
-Cheese
-Water
#3 Pull at 130 and finish sous vide
- Parksider is a well established Meatgistics member and has shared plenty of great tips and information on here, but this is the one that probably has helped more people than any other user tip.
- As I talked about on the podcast vacuum packing is really only necessary if you are using a Sous Vide Circulator that pulls water in and circulates it back out. In that case you run the risk of clogging a filter with fats, oils or even small pieces of casings. Surprisingly, finishing it up without a vacuum bag does not cook any smoke flavor or any flavor out of the meat.
#4 Fat content or raise pH
- For most sausage you want to be between 20-30% fat content, we always prefer pork fat as it is creamy, very light in color and has very little taste.
- Cold Phosphate raises the pH of the meat which lets it bind more effectively to the water, helping more of it stay in the meat during the cooking process.
- Fat effects the flavor by melting in your mouth and coating it, letting you experience the flavor more intensely and longer.
- Too much fat will render almost no matter what
#5 Start your smoker within 20 degrees of products living weight
-Don’t stress proteins
-Prevents case hardening
-Get as close to this as possible, a propped lid/door will bleed heat from your smoker or oven but you have to be able to monitor ambient temperature
It has been a while since we have done anything in this section and one of the things I liked was giving everyone the stats on how the community is growing and how much Meatgistics has been used. First, that is all from you guys! People aren’t coming here and staying here for me and Austin they might come to find some information but it is you guys who are keeping everyone engaged. The decision to have a community section of meatgistics was the smartest thing we have done!
Stats for the last 7 days:
New Posts 247
New Topics 17
New Users 55
New visitors 3,604 (lots of people just visiting or lurking, they’ll eventually get around to signing up!)
Page Views 121,854
All-time Stats:
Posts 19,700
Topics 2,200
Users 9,900 (we’d be well over 10,000 but I keep deleting any questionable accounts due to spam!)
Mulberrylane First of all, we’ll pray everything goes well with your son, that has got to be incredibly hard, glad you have what sounds like a tight family to help!
Second, we could come up with sausages and recipes without any preservatives but salt is the tough one. Salt plays such a key roll in sausage and even jerky that I don’t think that there is a way to eliminate it completely. Is there a % per serving that is acceptable or does it truly need to be salt-free?
Do the boys like heat? It seems like to me that the easiest way to work around low sodium but still provide taste would be to add some heat. What about sugar? Is that okay and if you want that restricted please let me know how many grams per serving of sugar is acceptable.
I’ll run this by our application specialist and Austin and I will have a talk to see what we can come up with!
Stay strong and god bless!
Austin and here is the most important pic taken during the entire weekend! PapaSop Thanks for stopping by, sorry you met @Team-Blue and not Austin!
Randyman Our 11 lb sausage stuffer just went on sale today, this is the stuffer I use all the time in our videos/experiments. The piston is smaller which makes turning the crank and stuffing a lot easier than on the larger models. https://www.waltonsinc.com/sales
Each week, Jon and Austin break out and critique a new beer and different sausage while they discuss everything about meat. Follow along as they talk about their favorite recipes and share some of the best expert tips and tricks for making sausage and jerky. Stay up to date on the latest news and current trends in the meat industry as Jon and Austin explore everything related to meat and more.
Jon is drinking Devil’s Advocate from Church Street Brewing
Austin is drinking Delerium Red from Huyghe Brewery
Jon used BBQ Jerky seasoning to make snack sticks and confuse Austin. While he was correct that there was some BBQ in it, he did NOT guess correctly.
-We talked about Calving Season
-Feedlot Inventories are a point of concern right now
-Meat Supply Inventories are hopefully on the mend by the time this is released!
We talked about the Precision Scale and how it can be used to help you make better sausage, especially when making smaller batches. Take the weight of the seasoning and divide it by the intended batch size, then multiply that by the # of pounds you are doing and then multiply that by 16 to get oz instead of pounds. That # is the ounces you need for the batch you are making.
This is the last one we had recorded before we released episode 1 so we will have a customer question answered in the next one!
We are testing out creating new groups based upon what smoker you own. Right now I have 1 for the Pk-100 and 1 for Masterbuilt. If people want I can split masterbuilt into a few different categories (but I don’t want to go totally nuts here) as I know they make a bunch, but to start this will make things easier. So, now if you have a question on a Masterbuilt or PK100 you can simply @Masterbuilt or @PK100 and it will notify everyone in that group!
So, to be useful people would have to go and join those groups. Let me know if you guys like this idea and what other groups for smokers or other pieces of equipment you want. Right now I have the badges showing but we can hide that if it starts to get too many badges next to our names.
That last one is afterni cleaned it, any meat processing equipment (including lugs and knives) should be well cleaned before it’s first use. Let me know if that’s not what yours looked like, if it is then that’s what it should look like and do a basic initial clean
Chef I am pretty sure they are not Halal, surprisingly I do have a halal certification for our natural casings though.
Les Strahm I’m going to ask our application specialist and we will see what he says but they have different levels of nitrite so the calculation might be rough. Also, this would be for home use right, not for sale?
Thomas Sweeney I’d say that the Encapuslated Citric Acid being ground is your main issue. Beyond that sorry, my only advice would be to use a pre-packaged seasonings. Trouble shooting anything with a homemade recipe isn’t something I can do.
unclelar1 No, that would impart the incorrect PPM of nitrites, for dry rub it is 200 ppm, and for injected or pickled it is 120. You might be able to do the calculations to get the nitrites right but then the flavor intensity would be changed.
calldoctoday Maybe I am blind but I am not seeing detter22 asking for Rabbit sausage spices? Maybe it was on another post? I know this is so over used but people say rabbit does taste slightly of chicken just a little more intense and earthy (whatever that means) so I would say really anything is going to work well with it for Sausage. Hatch Green Chili springs instantly to mind as does Supreme Pizza and Apple Brat but now I am just naming my favorite bratwurst seasonings!
jeffchris83 I would recommend a #22 and the 50 mixer. #32s are great but they generally jump at least $100 and unless you are consistently doing huge batches the speeding up of the grind isn’t a big enough factor to warrant that increase, instead you can use that money elsewhere. That however is just my opinion, if you feel like getting a #32 go for it, they are more powerful and you can grind quicker.
