Meat Processing

@Dave-in-AZ This was an American Guinea Hog that was about 18 months old. @processhead It was just in my garage from 12/25/21 until 3/15/22. Temps went well into negative at times, but never went over 40 until the day I finished cutting him up. The day I slaughtered I sprayed the whole carcass with 1:1 vinegar/water and repeated daily for 3 days so there wouldn’t be as much bad bacteria. Anything off colored was discarded.

@grimpuppy sweet, thx for posting! Put in an order for $280 of goodies including sure gel was just waiting!

Thanks for the information! My plan was mixing a gallon up and use as needed for meat block weight x 15%. I better let my wife know I was right about something today. She thought it meant you use a 15% solution.

@dave-in-az I never found the dough hook to be useful either, but the paddle does very well as you have found also. I think mine is 7 qt and I tried 10lbs once and never did that again, meat was every where. The sweet spot for mine to keep everything clean and where I could walk away from it and mix efficiently was 5lbs.

@dave-in-az interesting post. Thanks for sharing

Great read, congrats! Thx for posting!

@herbcofood yep! You can use this pattern for a Santa too.

@deepwoodsbutcher great idea

@miller great looking jerky. Congrats

@samspade said in Using Citric Acid as an anticoagulant?: @mrobisr I was just about to say that uhhh sodium stuff. Lol Sam I just read this again and it made me laugh again, so thanks for the smile.

Thanks for all of your guys input. I appreciate it. As you can probably tell I’m a newbie. I was able to stuff them last night. I’ll be smoking them early tomorrow morning and then doing the sous vide. I’ll try using the frig to make them a little dryer after processing. Outside temp is supposed to be in the single digits tomorrow morning. Where the heck is Spring when we need it. Ha Thanks again!

@twilliams Sounds good will do, making two batches of sticks this weekend habanero BBQ with ghost pepper cheese also.

I buy these 2 1/2 gallon ziplock bags at dollar tree 5 to A box and put my sticks or sausage in there. Tried it without bagging did not like the flavor as well and also did not like the oil and particles in my water and in my sous vide. Tried both ways like bagging them better. Easy to put probe in sausage in that big bag, no reason to vac seal.

@mrobisr Well son of a gun… Grimpuppy came up with the same solution as I did! Here I thought I was being ‘original’. lol I actually took four racks (just like what GP has shown there) and using some stainless steel threaded rod (washers & nuts), built a ‘3-tier’ holding rack. It’s basically ‘fit to size’ and my SS will no longer be able to escape and roam around. Each level will/can hold three SS’s but given the limits of my smoker, I can only make six SS’s per run/time. So, I can easily get two SS’s per level… allowing for LOTS room between/around each SS for water circulation. I know, I know… overkill! The 10"x15" cooling racks fit perfectly in my SV cooler-cooker… no modifications required. Can’t wait to give it a go!

@glen said in Simple back (Canadian) bacon smoke: Am I worried about what I’ve used in the past? Not at all, quantities were small and for the most part I never took much to the trigger temp. I have used plenty of it in the past too and have fried it to high temps, but as you said it was small quantities and I have not lost any sleep about it either.

It wouldnt let me edit after 3 min, so I just lost a bunch of tweaks Looked at their goose stick recipe. I think that is a typo, should read 3/4 quart, not gallons. Most recipes use around 10% water, so for 12.5 lbs meat thats 1.25 lbs water, or 2.3 cups. In their pepperoni stick recipe below, from their meatgistics video page, you can see how they give the meat amount they are using, then the UNADJUSTED WATER AMOUNT. Only later in text, easy to miss, do they adjust the water! This is a terrible way to list a recipe, all ingredients listed already adjusted per calculation except one, then telling you to adjust that one later: MEAT BLOCK 4 lb of Beef Trim 6 lb of Pork Butt ADDITIVES 1 Bag Pepperoni Unit 2 Quarts of Ice Cold Water <--------!!! Fibrous Casings Or Hog Casings Or Collagen Casings Optional Additives: Carrot Fiber Encapsulated Citric Acid PROCESS Since we are making 10 lb of pepperoni we will need to divide out the seasoning, cures water and additives we are going to us. Since this bag of seasoning is enough for 25 lb of meat and we are making 10 lb we need to divide the weight of the seasoning by 2.5, make sure you do the same for the additives as well. That gives us .562 of a lb of seasoning, 1.6 oz of carrot fiber, 1.6 oz of Encapsulated Citric Acid and 0.8 of a quart of water. <-------!!!

Mrobisr, thank you

@samspade said in All Beef Snack Stick Texture: Can you over mix? If no encapsulated CA. By hand it would be very hard, but the meat temp does rise since body heat is being transferred to the meat so in that sense I guess you could say it is possible. Using powered mixing you can start to incorporate air into the batter so “they” say, I cannot say I have ever experienced that problem.

@thirdeye said in Dry Edge (rind) on Summer Sausage: @mrobisr The ratio was 30% ground beef (93/7), and 70% pork butt trimmed a little close, so maybe 80/20. Sounds like the fat was good enough and the temp was slow and steady, so I’m thinking maybe and air pocket. Did you pin stick it, yes you cannot say the actual word?