Hello folks. My name is Clint. Like Eastwood but without all the money. I’m a mechanical engineer at an Aluminum rolling mill in south central Kentucky.

Been a deer hunter all my life including the butchering. Got lazy these last few years and took my deer to a local processor because they make summer sausage. They got into some legal trouble recently and weren’t allowed to produce any sausage or jerky this year. So I got into it myself.

I started with a grinder from one of the big box sporting goods stores simply because I had gift cards and credit card points. Looks like a rebranded Weston 22 butcher series. It’s done very well. Ground about thirty pounds worth in less than five minutes.

So far I’ve made two batches of 5 pounds each for snack sticks. Used the jalapeño seasoning with carrot fiber binder in 19mm casings. First batch went well except the casings didn’t stick well after sealing and freezing. Research here suggested I’d sealed them to soon the second batch dried up in the fridge over night and did much better.

Going to Missouri with some friends in a few weeks snow goose hunting. Planning to turn them into sticks also. I’ve been stuffing with the grinder attachments but that ain’t going to fly for the kind of pounds we are hoping for. Thus, I just ordered the 11# stuffer.

Still borrowing a vertical smoker for now. Plan to pick my own up in spring. Just trying to spread my costs around some. Easier to explain to the wife that way too.

Jonathon I saw that. I might have to try a portion that way. I’ve been lurking since oct/nov. Most of the guys like jalapeño with cheese. We’ve had some made from a processor that way before and they were really good. I’m a big pepperoni fan so I’ll probably try some in deer anyways.

So I’m using a borrowed vertical smoker for now while making snack sticks. My first couple of batches were five pounds each because I was learning and I wanted to minimize the risk. I was surprised to find that this was also all I could get in the smoker.

It’s relatively small. It’s only got two racks but has room for a couple more. The owner lost them at some point. I’m wanting to try some bigger batches so I’m probably going to buy them replacement grates. However, that only gets me to about ten pounds. How can I get more capacity? I’ve seen some people hang them vertically. Does that hold more while still allowing the smoker to function well? I’m using 19mm casings so it looks like allot of wasted space between grates. Anyone ever purchase additional grates and space them up off the others with blocks of some sort? Any other suggestions? Inside dimensions of the smoker are 15wide by 12 deep and about 16” from the top grate position to some clearance from the water pan.
Thanks.

There is an appendix a for usda that details time versus temperature for safe processing. 160 is instantly lethal to all the bad stuff. You can do lower temps for longer periods of time but it’s very dependent on you truly knowing the temp and not having any cold spots. Since very few people can be that confident, most people shoot for guaranteed.