Meat Processing

@jonathon Good Morning Jonathon. Pick the seasoning you want, since you are the one who is going to be eating them. Im interested in how the thighs will affect the texture, how you are going to grind them etc. Thanks!

@pete Great question! Yes, the recommended 2 quarts of water does make stuffing much easier than if you were to use 1 qt. Now, using that much water will make your cook schedule a little longer. So, if you are not concerned with making your stuffing easier then you can use 1 qt and your cook time will be faster. I’ve never noticed a difference in the smooth or wrinkled texture when adding 1 or 2 qts, mostly when I see wrinkled casings it’s either cooking too hot too fast or lack of protein extraction during the mixing phase (if you haven’t seen it this is a pretty good video on protein extraction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wStH-RtQUY8). The consistency of the meat when adding the 2 qts of water might be significantly different depending on what binder you are using, I almost always add carrot fiber and that holds up to 26 times its weight in water. If you aren’t using a binder it might have a slightly soupy consistency but that excess water will cook out during the smoking/cooking process. Let me know if I didn’t understand part of your question or if you have more!

@medeling32 Absolutely, in general bratwurst seasonings work best with 100% pork anyway. I always take the left overs from stuffing and make patties out of it and the Inferno made a great patty! I’m not sure if you have watched it or not but Austin and I had a disagreement about the hottest brat seasoning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcaUOlOFWwg) He thought it was Habanero but I knew it was the Inferno, get ready for some heat!

@medeling32 Any chance you are from PA? Ring bologna is huge around Philly where the Dutch Amish influence makes some awesome products.

@harpo79 No, mix both the cure and the carrot fiber in with the meat and add the water, doing it the other way wont really hurt anything there is just no need and the carrot fiber might bind up the cure too efficiently. For water just use the 2 qts, that is more than enough. Using more won’t help your bind and it will increase your cook time. Remember if you are using encapsulated citric acid to go right to the smoker! I hope this wasn’t too late to help!

I had a few other people look over your process and the consensus was that is sounds like it was either a mixing problem or the thermometer you were using failed and it ended up getting way over cooked. So try a new thermometer and try to make sure you get your product really sticky and tacky to ensure it has a good bind. If you try it again and have similar issues let us know!

@gerygaub The carrot fiber will help for sure and as long as you are near or above 20% fat you should be okay. The issue with that is that Ground Sirloin is sometimes 90% or more lean. You might want to try adding some Cold Phosphate for moisture retention? Maybe hold off on adding that for your first batch and just add it if it comes out dry? The Cheeseburger Cheddarwurst comes with sure cure so it can be smoked or you can leave out the cure and make it fresh. If you add the cure and smoke it just make sure you get REALLY good protein extraction to help prevent the fat from rendering out during the smoking process. If you are not curing and smoking and are making a fresh product let it cook at lower temperatures initially on the grill or in the pan, same goal here we don’t want any fat to render out. Your creation sounds amazing and I don’t know if you knew it or not but we have declared this the Month of Bacon at Walton’s so when you make these please post pictures of them to Meatgistics and if you want either the Meatgistics or Waltons Facebook or twitter or wherever!

@jonathon Thanks Jon! Will try a binder on next batch! I appreciate the quick response! Tubby

Well you got my brain spinning too much and I couldn’t stop thinking of pepperoni so now I have been making pepperoni all day and shooting a video about it! I’ll have the video up hopefully in just a couple of days!

@medeling32 Yes, normally I use 100% pork. Though I have done 100% beef, a 50/50 mix of beef and pork and even 100% chicken breast. It really comes down to what you want in it. If you are using chicken just remember to use a binder or your sausage will be dry and won’t bind well. Let us know if you need anything else!

@dennishoddy It depends on what type of casing you are using, if you are using cellulose casings then you probably will need to either tie them or use hogs rings, tying them would be my suggestion there. If you are using natural casings like sheep or hogs then you shouldn’t need to use anything at all, they should stay twisted once done. If you are using collagen casings then you can twist them but once you cut them they casing will come open a little, you could tie these if you want but I generally don’t, as long as collagen casings are cooked at the correct temperature they should expand too much past the casing. For a good example of how to twist casings go to the 4:35 mark of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_FgktFx4Xg Austin is twisting cellulose casings here but it shows how to twist. Let us know if you need anything else!

@gerygaub You should link then smoke them. I smoke for 2 hours then simmer them in my turkey fryer pot till they reach 160. We put the pot on our wood stove. Keep it around 170 to 180. I ice bath them THEN cut the links and remove the casing. Watch a you tube video to learn how to link. Keep them linked throughout the entire cooking process.

@gerygaub I have a Weston 44 lb meat mixer back in the video room, I took it apart and am attaching pictures of what I think is missing, it is just one bronze piece and then the black knob screws into this. It is called a Pivot Pin and I would imagine you could order a new one from Weston. [image: 1522960321539-img_1837.jpg]

@jonathon thank you sir!

@parksider They look great! Sorry I missed the fun.

@alchemybullies If you are intending to do patties then I would say that you are better off using the poly tubing as the bags have a gusset at the bottom that would make that a little oblong. We do sell the meat bags by the 100 if you wanted to buy some and check them out and see if they would work for you? Another option would be the 4.8 in x 22 in Fibrous Boneless Ham Casings and stuffing, freezing and slicing them. You would get a lot more round portion out of this than I would think you would get with the meatbags? This would be fairly cost effective as well as you would get 25 of these casings with an order and each casing is 22" long so they would do a fair amount. So, if you are going to use the full 2,000 feet then go with the poly tubing, if you don’t want to buy all of this at once then either the meat bags or the fibrous casings would be a decent option!

@laurie612 Yes, if you are making 5 lb of Inferno Snack Sticks it would be the same 1.8 oz for 5 lb batch. Inferno is a great taste as well as being hot so either way you go I think you will be happy with the results!

@harpo79 One of the most important things to remember when making a cured sausage like product out of chicken or turkey is fat content. If you are using a very lean meat block you need to either add pork fat to get your fat % up to around 20% or you need to add a binder like the Carrot Fiber and extra water. I’d recommend you add a little bit of cold phosphate as well, I made poultry bratwurst recently and used both carrot fiber and cold phosphate and they came out great, check out the video here https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/415/how-to-make-a-juicy-homemade-turkey-bratwurst. The only difference for you will be that you will need to mix until you have protein extraction and you will need to add cure. Like Austin said in a previous post make sure you are keeping everything very cold while you are processing it. That will make your snack sticks better in the end and easier to work with!

Sure did, not as easy as natural casings but they stayed in the “globes” during the smoking process and into the water bath for the finish. They were very stable and strong, I was worried about they would hang. [image: 1520629343951-img-0695-resized.jpg] [image: 1520629341850-img-0694-resized.jpg]

@angel4us Prague #2 has both nitrates and nitrites in it whereas sure cure has nitrites but no nitrates in it. The addition of nitrates makes it a better choice for slow or cold curing where as Sure Cure or #1 cure is what you use for things you are going to smoke with heat like snack sticks. Unless you are cold curing something then use Sure Cure. Adding more cure isn’t going to give you more shelf life. FSIS/USDA regulates the amount of ingoing nitrite into a sausage, and the maximum allowed is 156 ppm, so you would not want to go above this. Our formulations are designed to be within the limits as regulated by the USDA. Let us know if you need anything else!