Chef
Team-Orange Team-Blue Regular-Contributors Power-User
Sorry about not responding to this sooner. It has been so crazy here lately, and I didn’t want to give this just a 2 second response.

I wrote a response multiple times, and I’m scrapping it all to be a bit briefer (Yes, this one is briefer than my first couple takes at writing something! Haha!)
Before the events of the last few months, I already had a distaste for social media for a variety of reasons, so I started to write out why I disliked them, and I didn’t personally use them. I have a lot of personal animosity towards social media, but I know a lot of people enjoy it and it provides value to them. I would write a 20 page novel if I could, but I decided I should cut a lot of that out because I ultimately hope everyone makes the choice that makes them happy and they also allow me to make the choices that make me happy, and I am personally happy by not using social media.

Walton’s ultimately uses various social media platforms because that is where many of our customers spend a lot of their time, they expect to interact with us there, and they find value in it. While we use them, I don’t want to let them use us. While they provide a benefit to our customers and thus a benefit to us, we will probably remain involved and have a page/channel to some extent on different platforms. We had been discussing previously if Twitter specifically was providing any value to us for a long time, and we had already made the decision to wind down what we did there. We simply no longer got a benefit from it and I don’t think many customers were either, so as of now, I believe we are mostly done with being very active on Twitter. Our account does remain there and will continue to, but it won’t receive much attention going forward because it doesn’t benefit our customers or us. While Facebook continues to benefit our customers who choose to use it, we will probably remain involved to some extent. I have historically chosen to not spend money with them, but I prioritize trying to use them (or any other social media platform) instead of letting them use us. If we and/or our customers stop getting a benefit from using them, then we will stop using them.

While I personally dislike social media in general, I understand everyone gets to make their own choice about whether they use it or not. I choose not to use it personally, but while people use the various platforms, we will try to be available as a company to our customers through the various channels they prefer. That does have a limit, and our involvement may only go so far as to the specific needs and benefits that it brings to our customers. If it stops being of a benefit to our customers, or somewhere else becomes a more appealing place, we would and will be changing our focus. I can say that we will be changing some of our focus. I know there are many other social media platforms out there that have some very strong and loyal user bases that we have not used in the past, and we have and are creating channels on some new platforms. If they prove to be beneficial to us and our customers that use them, we’ll continue to focus more heavily on them than others. We will continue to try to adapt to where our customers are investing their time.

The Most Important Stuff

One of the “alternative” platforms out there, in my opinion, is Meatgistics. It is in a sense, some level, part, or piece of a social media. I wouldn’t put it in that exact category, but it does have some similarities. Meatgistics is where I prefer and we do spend most of our time and money, particularly when it comes to direct customer interactions. I very much prefer having our own platform for sharing, communicating, and interacting with customers (and even people who aren’t customers). I think Meatgistics has been a place that has grown to be a very well respected place where everyone is friendly, kind, supportive, and very much like a family (Even Team Blue, as crazy as they are, hold a special place in my heart! Hahaha!). It is unlike other sites, platforms, and places out there on the web for the quality of community that has been developed. We could have spent our time and money on building a connection with people through an existing social media and a group page there, but we decided to forge our own path and create our own place where people could communicate freely with one another and us and we weren’t beholden to someone or something else. While other social media platforms will always have some place in what we do, Meatgistics will always be our main focus, our main area of communication, and our preferred place to interact with everyone out there. Everyone has their own choice to make though on where they spend their time. Many people won’t ever use Meatgistics because it is not as convenient to them as Facebook, or maybe it is just too unfamiliar, or whatever other reason people may have, but we can choose to make this the one place that receives most of our attention, time, and money, and we can try and foster an environment that is different from other places out there. That is the amazing thing that I love, the fact that everyone is free to make their own choices. My hope is that everyone is also able to respect my choices and let me be free to choose what I want to do, just as I don’t want to interfere with what they choose to do, even when I don’t agree with them. My choice and loyalty will always lie with the users of Meatgistics and the people here. Even if we have or don’t have a presence on other platforms, Meatgistics will always be the one platform we will spend our focus on.

My wife spoiled me for our anniversary and let me get a cowboy ribeye and filet mignon meatballs!

I’ve been tagged a number of times in the past 2 weeks and haven’t been responding, but I am back and will try to respond as I am catching up on things. Sorry for not getting back to some of you sooner, but I have been out for a good reason…

Kid number 2 was born on 12/3! (Gemma Walton)

I should be on the Christmas Livestream this Friday. I won’t be on the entire time, but I’ll be on for at least part of it.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season, having good luck through hunting season so far, and is ready for Christmas here really soon!

akdave and I had a good offline conversation about this. We are in the process of adding USPS to our available shipping options. While it is not complete, his feedback was great, and we are working on getting this moved along further. Our original plan was to add extra USPS options earlier this fall, but decided not to as we didn’t want to make a big change in our “busy season”. As we are getting into the first of the year and things will start slowing down, we will make more progress here, and hopefully in a month or so we will have a full implementation. We will get the order for akdave out, and he is going to be one of our guinea pigs on running a few USPS things through. Thanks akdave ! We are glad you spoke up and gave us some feedback, and we hope that it will be a much better and easier process for shipping for you and our other Alaska customers soon!

If anyone else has other feedback about Meatgistics or Walton’s, please, always feel free to share it. Everything doesn’t always have a quick and easy fix, but we do always appreciate hearing from our customers and we will always try to find ways to make the entire process for everyone easier!

Jonathon is gone today, so I felt like I had to man the studio kitchen and keep it running, so I made just a few pounds of brats today! Just two 5 lb batches. One was |Cheeseburger-Cheddarwurst-Seasoning and the other was Jalapeno Popper Sausage Seasoning

Cheeseburger was made with 1 whole pound of |High-Temp-Cheddar-Cheese!
Yes, Jonathon 1 whole pound to 5 lbs of meat! I’m definitely going for cheese overload on this one!

Jalapeno Popper was made with another 1 whole pound of |High-Temp-Mozzarella-Cheese

Both were a 50/50 split of beef and pork. Thought that might make them different and interesting, so we’ll see what the comments are and if people like them that way.

I have the family coming over for lunch on Sunday after my daughter’s baptism, so I needed some sausage to cook. My wife immediately asked for Jalapeno Popper, and I figured Cheeseburger Cheddarwurst anyone would like, but hopefully/especially the kids that will be there. Jalapeno Popper is a newer flavor that has really risen up our list of favorites here!

I got the electric stuffer out and going, and it was amazing to do it all so easily by myself with that thing. I can’t wait until we get them in later this year and others get a chance to use them.

Tex_77 could not get to Walnut Valley yet for beef bacon so it’s a pork bacon morning here!

ND Mike twilliams

That was from my back porch. It went east past us, then turned north and went along side us. Probably within 3 miles at the closest to our house. We watched it form and grow from just a small rope tornado to a pretty wide funnel. I guess they said F3 was the size.
Right before this one built up, we watched a funnel cloud swirling above the house and within 5 minutes of that, we watched the one in the picture form. It was quite a night for watching storms! Did a fair bit of damage through Andover, but thankfully no casualties.

GWG8541
I wouldn’t do a new one… The one you have will become a collectors item and maybe be worth a lot of money someday cause it was a true original! Lol

What Is A Snack Stick?

Snack Sticks are a meat snack and semi-dried sausage that are stuffed into a small diameter casing. Typically a collagen casing is used, but it is also acceptable to use natural casings or even make skinless snack sticks. Most snack sticks have a low pH from around 4.5 to 5.2, which is what gives them that familiar tangy flavor and is what helps aid in shelf stability. Another aid for shelf stability is a low water activity, which means binding water in the meat snacks to make it unavailable to support microbial growth. Water activity is not something that can be measured by a home meat processor, but we still set up our process and thermal processing to attempt to achieve a lower water activity. Snack sticks can be made from just about any type of meat, from beef, pork, chicken, other poultry, wild game, or a combination of meats. Walton’s recommends using a lean to fat ratio of at least 80/20, and many times a 30% fat ratio, with a maximum of 40% fat. Fat is where most of your flavor comes from so changing your lean to fat ratio will change the overall taste and mouthfeel of your product.

Meat Block

25lb 80/20 beef trim ¹

Additives

1 package Excalibur Snack Stick Seasoning
1oz Sure Cure ²
6oz Sure Gel Meat Binder ³
4oz Encapsulated Citric Acid ⁴
2 to 3 lb High Temperature Cheese
19mm Collagen Casings
1 Quart Ice Cold Water ⁵

Process

Start the initial grind with a 3/8in (10mm) grinder plate, then grind a second time through a 1/8in (3mm) grinder plate. Always use a sharp grinder knife and plate. This will help you retain a better particle definition, color, and help prevent any smearing of the meat. If you cannot easily distinguish the lean from the fat when grinding, then it may be time for a new grinder plate and knife.

Meat Mixing

Using a meat mixer is preferred to hand mixing when making snack sticks. We need to make sure we get a lot of protein extraction, and that is a bit more difficult to achieve in hand mixing but still a possibility to do if you don’t have an actual meat mixer. We are going to want to mix for about 8 minutes, and we’ll want to reverse the direction of the mixing paddles every 1 minute. When you start the mixer, just start adding all the ingredients, except the Encapsulated Citric Acid and High Temp Cheese. These last two ingredients can be added in the last 45-60 seconds of the cycle, or just long enough to evenly disperse. Over mixing Encapsulated Citric Acid could lead to breaking the encapsulate and over mixing the cheese can lead to smearing and loss of shape.

Sausage Stuffing

Avoid creating air pockets when you load your sausage stuffer and begin stuffing until the casings are full with a smooth exterior. We will stuff into as long of ropes as we can, and then we’ll cut them to length when we actually hang on smoke sticks in the smokehouse.

Thermal Processing

For information on adding humidity to your smoke schedule go HERE
Either hang on smoke sticks or lay on racks in your smokehouse or oven. Just be sure to leave a slight gap between the snack sticks. A simple cooking schedule you can follow is here:
125F for 1 hour
140F for 1 hour
155F for 2 hours
175F until internal meat temp of 160F

Cooling

To help set the casing to the meat and also prevent wrinkling we need to shower the snack sticks when they are done cooking or put them in an ice water bath. It should only take around 10 minutes to get the temperature to drop down. Then, we’ll let them set out for about 1 hour before moving to the refrigerator/freezer. After we are totally done with the cooling process, then we will package in vacuum pouches for longer term storage.

Wrap up

It’s easy to get the basics on making snack sticks, but practice does make perfect. Walton’s has everything you need (except the meat) to make great snack sticks, plus we have the knowledge to help you perfect your own process. If you have any questions or need help in your process, please share your questions or comments below.

Notes

• Using a binder like Carrot Fiber, or Soy Protein Blend will not change how much water you put into your product.
• Place a small pan of water in the bottom of smokehouse during the entire cooking cycle to help increase humidity
  If your smoker, smokehouse, dehydrator, or oven cannot reach temperatures as low as 125F, just start as low as possible and slowly increase the temperature over time

FootNotes

1. Or use 18 lb wild game meat and 7 lb pork fat or beef fat, though beef fat will have different texture and taste (Return to text)
2. Sure Cure packet is included with seasoning (Return to text)
3. Instead of Sure Gel also try 4 oz of Carrot Fiber (Return to text)
4. If you do not use a cure accelerator like Encapsulated Citric Acid or Smoked Meat Stabilizer, then after it has been stuffed into its casing hold in a refrigerator for approximately 12 hours or overnight (Return to text)
5. For Home Processors 2 Qts Will Make Stuffing Easier (Return to text)

Watch WaltonsTV: How To Make Snack Sticks

I found out a bit more and also got some more info from customer service. Doesn’t look like he had ever requested a refund or return. It appears that the only contact we had from him was complaints about the shipping time. Might have been more contact in there, but nothing I can see right now. UPS delayed the package saying “Severe weather conditions have delayed delivery.” so there wasn’t a whole lot we could do there. I did not find out exactly what went wrong with the casings or how they were damaged exactly, but he’s getting his refund, so hopefully he’ll be back to at least not as mad. If not, we can’t win them all, but we can always try our best to make things right, and nothing here shakes my confidence in our customer service team and how they treat and take care of people.

akdave
I can get something figured out here. We just changed shipping software recently and can ship USPS now, but we have not turned it live for anything.
I’ll get it taken care of and update the website so you can place an order. I would give you a quote, but I don’t seem to find a cart for you at waltonsinc.com, but I may not be looking at the right user either. If you want, send me your email address you are logged in as on waltonsinc.com and I’ll make sure it is good to go.

My son got a special Christmas gift this year… I got some toddler Meatgistics shirts made! Almost 2 and he is already in love with Meatgistics!

If anyone has a 2-5 year old and wants a shirt for them, I should have details on how to get one next week. We will giveaway a number of them.

What Is Fresh Sausage?

Fresh sausage can include sausages like bratwursts, Italian style sausage, chorizo, breakfast sausage, and other related sausages. They can be packaged into collagen casings, natural hog casings, natural sheep casings, or even in bulk by using meat bags.

Meat Block

25lb 70/30 pork trim (or 25lb untrimmed pork butt)
If using Venison or another lean wild game ad 18 lb of venison and 7 lb of pork or beef fat

Additives

1 package Excalibur Sausage Seasoning
2 to 3 lb High Temperature Cheese (optional)
30mm Fresh Collagen Casings or 32/35mm Natural Hog Casings
16oz (1 pint) Ice Cold Water (optional, to help make stuffing and seasoning dispersion easier)

Process

Grind the meat twice using a 3/16in grinder plate. You may grind once, mix in your seasoning, and then grind a second time, or you can do all your grinding and then proceed to meat mixing.

Meat Mixing

You can choose to either hand mix or use an actual meat mixer. Either method will be completely fine as we are just mixing long enough to get a good dispersion of seasoning, and we don’t want to get a lot of protein extraction (where the meat is sticky) like when making a cured sausage.

Sausage Stuffing

Simply load your sausage stuffer, while avoiding creating any air pockets in the canister, and begin to stuff in the casings or meat bags of your choice, until the casings are full with a smooth exterior. Stuff into as long of ropes as you can, and then cut them to length or twist link once done.

Cooking

If you are cooking these on a grill cook them over medium heat (around 350-375°F) until the internal temperature is 160°
If you are cooking in an oven bake at 350° until internal temperature is 160°

Wrap up

Fresh sausage is one of the quickest and easiest meat snacks to begin making at home. All you need is the seasoning, ground meat, and a sausage stuffer to get started. Over time you can add additional equipment, supplies, and products to make things easier, or expand your process by purchasing a meat grinder to grind your own meat.

Other Notes

Add 1 pint (16oz) of water per 25lb of meat to help make sausage stuffing easier, and to help make mixing easier and quicker for dispersing seasoning evenly throughout the meat mixture.

Watch WaltonsTV: How To Make Fresh Sausage

Shop waltonsinc.com for Bratwurst Seasonings

Shop waltonsinc.com for Sausage Casings

Shop waltonsinc.com for Meat Grinders

Shop waltonsinc.com for Sausage Stuffers

Dave in AZ
If people mention other brands, we don’t do anything. Links are explicitly not allowed though and will be automatically removed. Reviews of other brands are not typically allowed. Whether the review is good or bad, we do not allow other commercialized messages. Our big issue there is that we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this platform, our other marketing channels, etc. each year, and to let a competing company take advantage of our work, time, and money is not fair. If the message is commercialized in any way, it will probably get removed.

But also, like Tex_77 said, there are a lot of people who own other brands, and that is ok. Those products will get brought up in conversations. Their names and information will make it into this site and the conversations here. There is just a difference between it being included in a conversation and it being the main message of a topic. As soon as the main message is the brand, it has crossed a line into a commercialized territory.

Jonathon and I will see what we can do to make this clearer and more upfront.

GWG8541 We love doing it too and the happiness is mutual.
BTW… I loved your post the other day where you said your wife’s comment was that we wouldn’t send it for free cause it was too nice. We like to giveaway nice stuff cause it’s the same thing we want to use/have. Cheap stuff just ends up in someone’s trash can. Nice stuff actually gets used. If it was all cheap stuff we could just replace it all, but it would get expensive to replace everything with what we have given away so far.

I didn’t take a picture of it, and I completely regret that now, so this post will be just boring words…

I made steak last night and ran out of our Walton’s Ultimate after seasoning 1 steak. Searched my seasoning shakers and decided I would try the new Firecracker Rub on another steak, with a hint of Butter Garlic. Just a light dusty of butter garlic, then caked on some firecracker rub. Pretty thick layer since it is not super heavy in salt.

Steak turned out amazing. Not as good as Walton’s Ultimate, but the spicy ranch flavor on steak was something I will definitely repeat occasionally.

Next time, might do a base of Walton’s Ultimate, and then add a dusting of the firecracker for just a hint of spice.

kyle zbigjeff Denny O
The word “f orum” is now censored. Shows up like this: FORUM

lkrfletcher The thank yous go in both directions. We wouldn’t be able to do anything of this without you guys! I’m glad Jonathon came up with the prizes for post counts because it just adds another level of fun to things!

Denny O Just kind of a joke to add it to the censor list. But, we’ve always used the word “community” instead of “f orum”. Community just has a different sound, focus, and feel to it.

twilliams There are a few days a year we have to work on Sunday to be able to ship everything on Monday. Today is definitely one of those days. Tomorrow will be ridiculous for the amount of packages we ship!