Meat Processing

@srg158 The biggest draw back to collagen is that they dont accept a twist, so if you have been using hog casings you whole life you might not like that. I always used collagen casings until the first time I tried tubed hog casings and saw how easy it is. Now, I use collagen when I don’t care what the ends will look like and tubed when I want to serve full sausages!

@73Saint No, I wouldn’t say it is too similar to the Frank and Bologna or any of the other hot dog seasonings we sell but it is often stuffed into something around a 26mm casing, or at least that is always how I have done it!

Think I got it resolved Hydralic shop has food grade O-rings that should work and local machine shop estimates that for $100.00 they can make a spacer plate for stuffing plate and also machine the plate for air bleader valve.

@Jonathon Years ago, we did hundreds of pounds of venison summer sausage over time with 2 cups powdered milk to a 25lb batch. Always seemed to work fine.

@Parksider I meant to say stuffing tonight and smoking tomorrow

@wvhunter1965 I don’t know the mechanics behind it but I DO know that it doesn’t taste good on its own…I just learned that over lunch today! There are 2 versions of the booster, 1 with and 1 without msg so it is not only MSG at work. The one without it has Sugar, Salt, Dextrose, Spice Extractives (Including Celery). so I am guessing one of those spice extracts is paprika as people have said before that it adds a bacon flavor, but that’s honestly a guess on my part!

@Jonathon thanks for the advice Jonathon!

@Jonathon with the temps in the teens here I think you will win this race lol !

Hoops, I don’t know what you’re making but when I make sopressata, instead of pressing I use fibrous casing and double wrap them with tight elastic netting. The end product is very tight

@weirich76 For fresh products another option would be phosphates and carrot fiber together. The phosphates are going to raise your pH and shorten the shelf life but if you keep them frozen until you are ready to cook it shouldn’t be an issue! Check out this https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/415/how-to-make-a-juicy-homemade-turkey-bratwurst for some more information

@Meateater1 Thanks-that’s what I was looking for.

@Jonathon I’ll give that a shot!

@nmac54 it is what we are here for, literally!

@akdave Yeah you are getting some protein extracting when you are stuffing from the screw for sure. It’s entirely possible that your sticks will be a little dryer but in my opinion that’s a good thing, sticks are a semi-dried product anyway. One thing that dropping phosphates will do for sure is to increase the shelf life of your product! They raise the pH which reduces shelf life at times pretty dramatically! Good luck with the stuffing, cold usually does help a lot!

@akdave yes perfect! Cold meat is the key throughout the entire process! Ive done summer sausage up where i put the probe in at first and its about 20 degrees. (Frozen meat,bandsaw, big grinder,big mixer to do this) Colder the better! I think you got it down now! Your a professional!

@Jonathon Paging Dr. Oz!!!

@North what @twilliams said was spot on. Make sure you are leaving dampers open for that first hour and when you are using wild game you should use Sure Gel meat binder. This will help keep everything where it is supposed to be and prevent it from fatting out. Your process looks good for everything you have listed. I would point out that you should mix a lot! You are trying to get the fat to mix in with your meat as well as get your meat to extract the proteins so it is really really sticky. For a 12.5 lb batch you can use 1 qt of water or 3/4, the 1 quart might take a little longer to cook. Since you are having a specific problem I would recommend that you use the 3/4. Then if this is a little dryer than you would like you can increase that up to 1 qt. Im guessing that adding the extra water while mixing was your main issue. Mixing is supposed to be tough and the closer you get to it being mixed enough it will get tougher and tougher. Try it with just the 3/4 qt and see how it goes!

@Meateater1 found it thanks

I made some sausages using the Lil Smokies seasoning in 26mm clear collagen casings and they came out awesome, great flavor. Put in smaller casings, they should be great party snacks.

Was talking to a buddy back in Ohio who makes lots of sausage and he was telling me about a product he uses in all his cased products, It’s called Hawkins Eliminate V, its some kind of liquid vinegar antimicrobial. Anybody had any experience with it??