Meat Processing

@a2zwildlife First, I’d say using pork fat is going to be your best bet. Assume your hog has 5% fat at most so add between 15-20% pork fat. Then, if you are making fresh (bratwurst and the like) use carrot fiber and if you are making cured sausage (summer sausage or snack sticks) use Sure Gel Fresh seasonings that would work well (in my mind) Inferno Hot Brat Jambalaya Brat Hatch Green Chili Supreme Pizza Cured Willies Always a good choice Habanero BBQ Gigawatt Buffalo Wing jerkjy

@macminn18 No, that won’t work…well unless it was cold smoked? For sausage, you need to be using uncooked meat because after it has been cooked the proteins have already been denatured and reformed into a “solid” structure, you can’t break those bounds down and reform them again. Now, if you are talking about pheasant that has been cold smoked and then you want to make sausage that is a different story and an interesting idea! https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1850/gamebird-gourment-pheasant-snack-sticks We made snack sticks in the above video There are a few more ideas here https://pheasantsforever.org/BlogLanding.aspx?categoryid=369 We did some out of the Hatch Green Chili with pork fat and they were excellent, that video should be up on Pheasant Forever soon I would add pork fat if you can find it instead of adding straight pork as the pheasant will get lost in the meat of the pork but won’t with just the fat.

@Boone1 Yeah, puncturing the casing isn’t that big of a deal. You can stick it in the end which may or may not be open depending on the type of casing but in general, it won’t matter

Got to try that too. Thanks

I tried the Holly last time and thought the flavor was kind of light. Maybe I’ll mix a little bit extra in this time

@bcompton53 I would add 15-20% pork fat. I would also use sure gel over carrot fiber. And just one more option we use summer sausage seasoning for bologna and that is real good!

@denny66 SO yes, you can overmix but it is sort of difficult to do especially with hands. The most common issues would be fat smear or really rubbery texture. Of the two I believe the fat smear is more common but more plays into that happening than just the mixing.

Well gentlemen I got half of it right. I do put my plate in the same way each time… but they share the same knife. I plan to fix that issue soon!

@Jonathon great flavor and texture. Needs to be sliced thin, gets some nice toasted edges from the high heat. It’s at 3 weeks of drying and a little under 30 percent weight loss. I’m going to take it out to 35 percent and evaluate.

@Riley-Renwick Yes, if you have a sous vide that circulates the water any sausage should be vacuum-packed. A lot of people like @parksider do it with a roaster instead so they don’t use bags.

@donalddfd Yeah, the easiest thing to do is to save the leftover injection and then weigh what is left over, then add that weight in freshwater and you will have your 505 strength solution. Much less waste this way!

@Jonathon I think that’s really it, I’m going to make the changes and try again. It taste more like spam or ham then it does pork roll so I think with those 2 small changes it might work better. I’ll keep you posted! Thanks for your help, had a blast making it that’s for sure

@Chef Like @Jonathon says it all depends, Do you trust your source? Although with that kind of production i feel like it would be a good investment. Eventually you will be able to look at it and be within a % or 2 but its always nice to be able to double check your self, your employees and your suppliers. Also the Waltons one works great and is easy to use.

@paulfischer Bacon Taste Booster is 6 oz per 100 lb so you need a very accurate scale to make that work. It would be 0.24 oz per 25 lb batch so that is 6.7 grams. The new Escali Precision Scale is your best bet when weighing out amounts this small.

Actually, this one will probably have the most relevance https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1850/gamebird-gourment-pheasant-snack-sticks?_=1588681039053 if you are willing to add pork fat.

@TomKat1962 I would assume just use more pork then and more pork fat, some brands of pork roll do contain bacon. Adds more fat, can’t taste the bacon on the recipe though

Thanks guys

Thanks yooperdog, I appreciate the comment!

According to Excalibur, they had no reported issues with any seasoning with this batch. It is possible though that there was an issue and no one else had this issue. I did make another batch of it that was not that lot# and had no issues. The fact that 2 people had similar issues leads me to believe that there was some discrepancy with that lot but I am sorry, I don’t have more information!

@adoyle If you want to really speed things up then try finishing them in water. There have been a ton of posts on here about how to do it but I always like to point people to either Summer Sausage Nightmare where it first was brought up by @Parksider or to the Meatgistics university Advanced Cured Sausage for steps on how to do this!