Smoker Upgrade!

[johnsbrewhouse]

Retired157 Chamber sealers do a great job, and that wasn’t a full pull

[bocephus]

What a great group of people, don’t think you would find this kind of cooperation and helpfulness anywhere else, great job guys.

[Retired157]

johnsbrewhouse

Yep… I bought a chamber sealer as well. I figured if I was going to take a life, deer or elk, I wanted to make sure that after processing it myself, it would be around long enough for me to enjoy.

[Retired157]

bocephus

Hey… any of you guys out there doing this for the first time and using this ‘forum’; hang on. You’ll get so much info you won’t know if you’re ‘coming or going’! Good news though, it’s all useful and you can develop your own “Working Guide”… courtesy of Papasop!

[bocephus]

Retired157 It can get someone into overload, but it is all good info and many good people to help sort it out

[wdaly]

Retired157 Only thing I see missing is chairs for all of us to join you. That would be a blast. Good luck. You got this.

[calldoctoday]

Retired157 I have not seen one of those old card tables like that in a long time. Margaret & I used one I had as a kitchen table for a while when we first got married & she made me get a normal bed & some resemblance of a kitchen table.

[mrobisr]

calldoctoday said in Smoker Upgrade!:

Retired157 I have not seen one of those old card tables like that in a long time. Margaret & I used one I had as a kitchen table for a while when we first got married & she made me get a normal bed & some resemblance of a kitchen table.

We have a couple of those card tables, wife does puzzles on one and the other is in my man cave for snacks when friends come over.

[cdavis]

Retired157 good luck man. You’ll do .

[Retired157]

Ok everyone if you were wondering, yes; I actually did make my first batch of Summer Sausage yesterday! It was a long day. I started at 6:30am and had the SS in the refrigerator for its ‘over-nighter’ at about 9:30pm. Guess I won’t get that ‘speed’ award.

Here’s what I can tell everyone… you were right! Everything that I did at the suggesting of many of you worked out as expected. Yes, I am very pleased with what I was able to get done yesterday. By the way, my smoker upgrade worked CRAZY GOOD!

I got up this morning and decided to ‘sacrifice’ my little ‘chub’ (is that what a stick of SS is known as?). It tastes great! My first go at this appears to have been a success! Thanks for everyones’ help… and especially John for getting me that ‘binder’!

Ok… here are some pics from my day yesterday and up to this morning. I cut all the ‘chubs’ in half now and when I am done with this message, I will go out and seal my SS for freezing.

One last thing before the pics… what you guys FAILED to tell me was that when it comes to the mixing process and getting to ‘High Protein Extraction’, a guy better be ready for a ‘Work Out’! Holy Cow… My arms looked like Popeye’s when I was done.

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[Retired157]

johnsbrewhouse

Hey… just wanted to thank you!

[Bob Stehlik]

Retired157 Looks great. Congrats on your success and thank you for the detailed pictorial of your process. You really put a lot of time and energy into your prep & process. Now you can sit back and enjoy your SS (with a cold one of course!).

[wdaly]

Retired157 Can’t believe that’s your first batch. They look amazing. Your equipment is pretty nice as well. Glad you were able to get the results you wanted.

[johnsbrewhouse]

Retired157 Not a problem, your summer sausage project is now in the books and looks great!

[johnsbrewhouse]

Retired157 Sometimes it’s hard to be a one man band when it comes to making sausage. Most of the time I am that band as well. Hand mixing does take time and strength, I’m glad I only do 5 lbs. at a time, but I use a bowl. The meat lug might make it easier, but the S/S bowl is faster to clean up.

[PapaSop]

Retired157
Looks awesome. Great pics as well.

[processhead]

Retired157
You did well!
Hand mixing is not for the faint of heart or those who fear cold hands, but it looks like you got good protein extraction and it all begins there.

[Retired157]

johnsbrewhouse

Meat Lug… ? Send me a pic please. Yeah, I can’t imagine doing much more than 10 lbs by hand! Guess I’ll be running around town to our local ‘thrift’ stores and see if I can come up with a nice big S/S bowl.

My wife just got home and had a piece of my SS… it passed! She likes it. I really like the consistency of how the sticks turned out… solid. I think that ECA gives it a ‘tangy’ flavor… like store-bought. I like it.

[Retired157]

processhead

After reading all the comments about things going ‘wrong’ and seeing that a common theme was not mixing well enough to get HIGH protein extraction, I was determined not to repeat that error. So I basically just kept on mixing… and mixing… and mixing. Having no experience to tell me what ‘high protein extraction’ actually looks and feels, I just kept going. Some of the Meatgistics videos where they ‘showed’ this was my saving grace. I just kept going until I thought I was there… and then about another 5 minutes. I think I was into the mixing pretty close to 40 minutes before I ‘tapped out’.

[Retired157]

That little stick was the very last of what I could get out of the stuffer… to include hand pushing the meat out of the filling tube. Have to admit, getting that little guy ‘packed’ without the aid of the stuffer was a challenge.