Roll Call (Start Here First)

[mtnjim]

Gathering ingredients and tools for a killer batch of whitetail venison sticks!
Got the spices, hi temp cheese, binder, casings, etc. from you guys.
Have my own small meat grinder, just got a 20 lb. mixer today, borrowing a stuffer from my nephew, and found a guy in the 'hood willing to lend me his electric smoker!
Gonna do half Willie’s, half habanero spice mix…with the ghost pepper hi temp cheese.
Drooling already…lol.
Oh, living in Estes Park Colorado and just brought back venison from 2 Michigan deer :-).

[Jonathon]

meateater and mtnjim Glad to have you on the board! Both sound like you will be good additions to our growing community!

[Tim71]

Austin
I live in Mary Esther, Florida.
I have been playing with sausage for awhile now. My oldest brother got me interested and we often share ideas. Unfortunately my brother and I live on opposite sides of the country so can only share by phone but, we have had some long conversations trading ideas.
I have an electric smoker and love to smoke pork butts. My electric smoker does not give as good a smoke as a stick fired smoker but it still gives good flavor and could not be easier to use.
What I love about making my own sausage the variety of tastes you can get and the quality of the sausage itself. For me many of the readily available commercial products have a sameness of taste and texture (there are some exceptions that are very good). When you make your own, you have control over the flavor and the texture.

[Jonathon]

Tim71 Adding to the end of what you were saying, I love the sense of pride you get when someone tries something you have made and is blown away by it! It might be vain but I don’t care, I love having someone ask something like “where can I buy these?” and you let them know you made it! Welcome to the board!

[sgeisz]

Hey Waltons gang! Love everything about your company. I have been smoking meat and competing in BBQ for the last 21 years and have started really getting into making my own sausage, sticks and brats as well. Especially during deer season. I am from Peosta, IA. Been purchasing Walton’s products for years and glad to be on board with the blogging.

Steve

[Jonathon]

sgeisz Glad to have you on the board! Always nice to have a competitor on the board!

[Emoneyblue]

Hello folks,

Gumbo hear, aka Emoneyblue

Im now located in Chandler AZ. My wife and I own a Creole Cajun Resturant and bar. Im the owner and Chef at that location. we own a commercial 200 SC southern pride smoker and a 55 gallon barrow smoker that I use for my smoked meats. My most favorite flavor of seasoning is my in-house Creole/Cajun spice. I also make all of our sausages for the restaurant like smoked Andouille, Texas Red Hots, Tasso, Sweet/Hot Italian and snack sticks etc. I have a #50 hydro stuffer and a 132 lbs meat mixer and a commercial grinder to make quick work of getting that meat ground quickly. At home I have all the home basic equipment that I started with… Just cant seem to get to give it up because I can make smaller batches and not have to worry about moving or cleaning the BIG stuff. Enough about me, I just love all the advice and recipes you all are sharing hear so thank you in advance. Looking forward to meeting new friends. E$

[Ellis]

Ellis from wv.how much eca do you use for 4lbs meat.

[Jonathon]

Ellis We have an Additive Chart has additives broken down into 1 and 5 lb batches. You’d use .32 of an oz for 4 lb. We also have it broken down by volume on that chart. I still think weighing is the best way to go but if you don’t have a scale that will measure less than a lb the volume amounts can be helpful.

[DavidS]

Austin Saying Hi from Salt Lake City. I’m an old stick burner that converted to a pellet smoker, I use a Traeger Timberline1300. I enjoy making Brats, snack sticks, summer sausage and salami. Want get better, learn more and make new products.

[Austin]

DavidS Glad to have you on-board! We hope to see you around the forums, and definitely get a post out in the Meat Processing section if you need any help at all making something new. There is lots of great advice here from both our Meatgistics crew and the rest of the community members!

[Christian Beckman]

Chris from Minnesota

[1GRINDER]

Hello all, I’m Daniel from the rolling hills NW IL. I’m truly impress with the kind folks that hangout in this community. They are a wealth of information on all things to do with meat processing.

[megajunk]

Newbie here. I live in middle Georgia and am just diving in to this hopefully fulfilling hobby of making my own sausages and snacks. Looking forward to getting started with it, and completing my first recipe.

My only smoker is a Traeger, which is wonderful for smoking a brisket or pork butt, but I’m going to have to play with it to get it to smoke my summer sausages. (my first recipe order).

[Jonathon]

megajunk Welcome to the board! Smoking snack sticks and summer sausage on a pellet grill/smoker combo can be difficult but it certainly can be done. The largest issue you will probably run into is that you want to start the smoker at 120° for about an hour and then bump it to 140°. Most pellet grills start at 150°, so a few people have been starting them in there oven or propping the door open to let some heat bleed out. Propping the door open can work, but you need an accurate ambient thermometer.

[megajunk]

Jonathon

Thanks for the reply. I may rig up something with an external controller and thermocouple with an electric burner as a heat source for the lower temperatures until I get something better. I’ll make it work, somehow!

Thanks, again.

[Jonathon]

megajunk I was just replying to Chicovt in another post about this but if you have something like a pizza stone or other thick piece of ceramic you could put it under your grates and help with heat deflection.

[megajunk]

Jonathon

I do indeed, and that’s a great idea. I’ll try it.

[sstory]

Hi all - new to the group. I live in Broken Arrow, OK. My wife and I started doing KCBS competition BBQ back in 2008 after a buddy helped me build a large gravity-fed insulated smoker. I’m a little on the tech side, so I added a controller system that would monitor the pit and meat temps and would control the fan that was blowing into a ball valve to control the temp in the smoker. I then connected the controller to a wireless router that I could pick up with my laptop and run a piece of software that would graph out the temperatures and show when the fan was running. During competitions, this made it very easy for me to put our large cuts of meat in the smoker around midnight and then get a good night sleep in our trailer. I’d wake up occasionally and look at the laptop to make sure my pit was still running within 2 degrees of my target temp. We competed for about 5 years and then had to stop due to job related issues. A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to get into making sausage. I watched all sorts of videos. We had a KitchenAid mixer but the reviews for the grinder attachment didn’t sound good. So the plan was just to get a grinder and then also use it for stuffing. When I went to look at the grinder, they had it on clearance so I was able to get the #12 grinder and a 5lb stuffer for a great deal. I’ve mainly made some basic brats or our favorite has been chicken, spinach and feta.

I found Walton’s when I was searching for some supplies for some venison summer sausage I wanted to try to make for the first time. So my first order from Walton’s was seasoning, meat binder, casings (both summer sausage and 21mm snack stick) and high heat cheeses to make a 25lb batch of venison summer sausage. More info about that in another section.

Looking forward to learning more from everyone here.

Steve

[Jonathon]

sstory Glad to have you on the board! That sounds like a pretty amazing set up you had, do you still have it? If so please post some pictures of it. Hope your summer sausage came out nice and tasty!