For true skinless hotdogs, I like to use 26mm cellulose casings. They are very easy to stuff and then remove them after your ice bath. They should fit on a 1/2 horn nicely.

Just a note on Brining. I use the 5 gal bucket liners at Walton’s and they save on mess. But for the buckets, I choose the 5 gal measure-right paint buckets which are food safe and available at Lowes. They even sell a nifty screw-on lid for them.

Scottnthewoods Natural casings also poach well. With collagen casings, it’s important to get a good sticky mix going before you stuff them. You can do this with the sure gel additive, phosphate or even thru much mixing. However, too much mixing is not great for brats. Also, after stuffing, it’s best to let them set overnight to allow the casing to adhere to the meat. But again, unless you’ve got the whole sticky protein thing going on, it may not do any good.

Jonathon Does Excalibur make a seasoning for maple breakfast sausage?

SierraPete The BB Grinder was fine for it’s size. We never had a problem as long as we cut the meat small enough. I think the big bite part is a little oversold. The philosophy is to enable a smaller grinder to take a bigger piece of meat and grind faster. You should cut your meat no more than half the width of your grinder throat squared and have it par-frozen. Both Weston and LEM are great products. The Lem #8 big bite grinder was still working fine. I traded it to my buddy for a couple semi-loads of gravel.

I’ve owned two grinders. A LEM #8 big bite and my current one a Weston #32. What a difference!!! Grinding was stress with an small grinder, meat always overheated and became mushy at the slightest appearance of silver skin. The Weston is a workhorse. I ground 100 pounds of mixed meat four times in mere minutes to make a batch of hotdogs. Whatever size you think you need, get a size bigger., you wont’ regret it.

Hey folks. Love your site. We own Bacon Acres Farm, a heritage Hog Farm in North East Oklahoma and sell Registered Tamworth Breeding Stock, Butcher Pigs and Boxed Pork Products. My passion is meat processing and I like to specialize in Charcuterie. Walton’s seems to be limitless with their products and very helpful with their online information. I’ve already been in touch with our district rep and he is going to help me get started with some of our signature products that we hope to sell on our website (www.baconacresfarm.com). We hope to have a small USDA cut and wrap facility up and running in the near future and I’m sure Walton’s will be a big part of our operation.