Meat Processing

@smokinbubba my kitchen aid is the artisan and 5 lb tends to ride up past the top of the bowl , hand mixing at my age and other considerations added is at times difficult

@deweymeats No worries, this is exactly what we were talking about on this. I am asking our commercial sales people what their commercial customers do here. I’ve only ever made Dill Pickle and Pizza ground and formed jerky and those both are snack and jerky seasonings, so they are formulated either as a topical or to be mixed into the center of the meat. @ozgrams Thanks for clarifying, that is good to know!

The problem here is two-fold. 1st and biggest is that they are all formulated differently. Look at Habanero Lime, Dill Pickle or Pizza Jerky. All of those are formulated for both a stick and a jerky, which in my mind means they are going to be fine in either. Then look at the jalapeno jerky, that is .625 lb where jalapeno snack stick is 1.5 lb so is using that on a restructured jerky going to impart the level of flavor you want? Basically, yes, it is going to be fine to use as a restructured, it just might not have as strong of a flavor. I would argue that Dill, Hab Lime or Pizza should not be changed at all, just use it at the normal rate. For any others IF you want a stronger flavor I’d bump it by 10% more seasoning per lb and do a smaller test batch to see if that gives you what you want. The 2nd issue is that taste is so subjective. We have a few seasonings like Honey BBQ that I hate but other people say they love it. Then I have made things that I’ve loved and others thought had too little or too much taste. We need a scovile unit for taste. Tremblays. “That burger had 5 Tremblays of flavor.”

@samspade2519 Yeah, length of time frozen (as long as correctly packaged) shouldn’t be too big of a deal (unless we are talking years) and 7 days is certainly fine!

@Sdickey1960 The main person you need to talk to is your inspector. You want to hear what people say here but make 100% sure your inspector is okay with your plan before you do ANYTHING. Different inspectors have different levels of rules. We had one in Texas that wouldn’t let a customer use our safe handling bags because it either was missing a comma, or it had a comma where he didn’t think there should be one. So, before you make any investments talk to them.

@Sdickey1960 All things being equal use meat you just ground. If that isn’t possible then buying ground beef with the correct fat content is fine but it is never going to be as good as meat you just ground. Also, for sticks, I highly recommend pork or at least pork fat. It is creamier, lighter in color and has less of a taste than any other fat that is readily available.

cheese should be considered a flavoring as any thing else and it is subject to your taste

these are for 1 lb measure for the 1/4 teaspoon

@Ozgrams Yeah, as long as they are properly taken care of and vac sealed before freezing it shouldn’t be an issue. Certainly, don’t add a cure accelerator of any kind though. If you skip the cure then you need to cook them as a fresh sausage, cant use the same smoked schedule, you’d be in the danger zone for too long.

@skibumben said in New Grinder: d. Dumb luck. true I wished they carried the #22 but who ever said I wished I had less power… lol My only miss was once order was placed a friend called and she had a couple of $100 off coupons!

@Ozgrams said in Venison Whole Muscle Jerky: hell of an operation… never seen that brand of smoker… and you must have some great recipes in that safe… Whats the benefit of dusting the seasoning and stacking vs adding water and marinating in Fridge The short answer on dusting is, that’s how the instructions say to do it. The stacking just makes it easier to get them apart again when they are ready to go on the rack and also ensures that the un-dusted side is in contact with a dusted piece underneath it. With a marinate, the amount of cure and seasoning to use gets a little iffy. With some trial and error, you could probably figure out a system that would work with a marinade, but ultimately, not all the dry ingredients in the marinade are going to stick to the meat, and some drips off somewhere you don’t want it to go. I like the meat to have the minimum amount of moisture to shorten dry time and just minimize the mess while preparing. Its just my method and I am sure other methods work just as well for others. You have never seen a smoker like that one because it was a limited edition of one. In it’s previous life, it was a hospital blanket warmer. After adding vents, a larger heating element, home-made pellet auger/smoke generator, and temperature controls, it is now a smoker. Originally, I built electric smokers for my friends, mostly made from vintage refrigerators, the kind with the latching handles that kids would play in and…you know. A buddy coined the name, cooked up a logo, and built some badges for the smokers I was making. Yes, kind of sick/dark. But easy to remember. [image: 1612290508396-20210202_122729.jpg]

@Jonathon Thank you

@twilliams Thank you.

@Elsos I dont see a pic, it seems like you posted one? Recently I haven’t been as available to help as I would like to be, other things are needing my time but in general I try to be online and helpful! Right now I am working from home for a while so I should be online more! So, you used non hightemp and some didn’t melt? That is interesting, Id assume all the nom-high temp cheese would melt in a snack stick. It certainly did on the test batches I made with regular cheese. Next time consider toasting your garlic first. I did that with some Willies once and it was pretty excellent in my mind!

Thank for info. In smoker an waiting. For finish time.

@Jonathon awesome. I will try that next time. Thx

Thank you Paul. I’m extremely happy with it. Have 15 lb of willies sticks in it now!

Pulled trigger too quick. Friend had $100 off coupons!!!

if you want to go back farther the pharos from the middle east distilled spirits

@Hudson2020 No, they are excalibur seasonings so the ingredients are available but proprietary. You can look at the ingredients in order of predominance by scrolling down any page and clicking the additional info button but it wont show a % on anything.