Canadian bacon ham, brown sugar clove allspice cure

21st Anniversary. Wife said she would rather eat my cooking at home, so I cancelled the steakhouse and got cooking!

Tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, avocado in balsamic vinegar and olive oil

Scallops, seared with a brown butter dill gewurtztraminer deglaze reduction.
With my own cold smoked salmon.

NY Strip steak, with grilled zucchini and asparagus, sauteed green beans, and rosemary roasted red potatoes. With bernaise sauce. Steak was sous vide to 128 then hickory smoked at 150 then reverse seared.

All served with a cabernet sauvignon. I even remembered to get flowers and card!

My wife is making a roadtrip, so I made her and daughter some brisket breakfast tortillas to eat and take with. Fried white corn tortillas, scrambled eggs with lots of cheese in them, and a slice of brisket!
Also checked her tire pressures, oil, and coolant, so I’m in good graces with her this morning!

Reuben with my 1st pastrami for dinner! Everyone loved it.

Salmon, salt and sugar brined then hot smoked.
Dill Hollandaise sauce with my lemons.
Grilled asparagus and zucchini with lemon and garlic.
Sushi rice, dill style: sprinkled with coriander salt, sugar, vinegar, with turmeric and fresh dill.
Pink Moscato sparkling wine in honor of tonight’s “pink moon”.
Lemons and oranges from my trees.

My polish sausage, hot smoked. Quick seared.
Marianski recipe, 32mm hog casings, frozen pork stock instead of water, 1.5x garlic. Served with Colman’s English mustard.

Brussel sprouts, blanched then face fried in oil til crispy, tossed in balsamic vinegar/brown sugar/coriander-salt syrup.

Mac and cheese: Kraft, but reheated with Queso, cream, truffle salt, cayenne.

Cheery tomato salad with pickling cucumbers and sweet Maui onion with a vinaigrette.

… I was supposed to make Canadian bacon today, bought the loin, then got hungry.

You guys are always talking about hatch green chili brats, so I made burgers with Hatch green chilis, onion, and a diced jalapeno. Also homemade sourdough buns, and my own bacon.
I always fry up onions and sliced olives for topping.

I totally overcooked, made all beef large franks and buns too… no one ate because we all filled up on the burgers!

Terry Kostiw
TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ answer: use nonfat dry milk, not whole.

I did a bunch of reading on dry milk over last 2 weeks. There is not much hard data… a LOT of internet posts by folks following recipes, but very little if any I could find from meat scientists. Data from recipe makers is fine, if they ever once ran a test of “make one with dry whole, one with dry nonfat, here are results”, or even just allude to past experience saying they HAD made such batches. But that believable post from a reliable source didn’t exist in the top 500 google hits under various searches (<<turns out google prioritizes general reader content, only once I got links for Dairy Science journals did I find good info). I’m sure many experienced sausage makers have done it, they just aren’t posting about it much. Maybe because every recipe already directs the use of non-fat, so they figure it’s covered? Don’t know.

Here is what I found, reading posts on the chemistry.

1. Dry milk, while vs. Non fat-- USE THE NONFAT. The binding comes from the sugar lactose, which in nonfat makes up 50% of the product. Other components can be milk are 35 % proteins like caseinate, also a good binder and emulsifier.
   The “binding” comes from ability to hold water without it breaking loose at cooking temps. The fat binding comes from fat being coated in these protein water structures and held in place, apparently by a loose bond to the lactose-water structure and milk proteins, though this bond was just referred to, I haven’t seen any writeups on the molecular structure or bonding sites.
   –the two references I read on milk fat said the included fat took up bonding from the meat fats, and reduced the efficiency of the meat fat bonding
   – also mentioned, milk fat soft at room temps, did not survive the bond at cooking temps. No chemistry shown for that one.
   – lastly was the rancidity issue, apparently granulating and drying milk fat massively exposes it to O2 and leads to easy oxidation, and difficulty of storage in normal bags and for lengthy times.

2. My main interest was actual data showing a difference between “hi temp dry milk” sold by sausage makers, and “low temp dry milk”, normal stuff sold in all stores. Difference being production temperatures of 130ish vs. 160ish. It is said the low temp common version doesn’t bind sausage as well, leading to some posters saying not at all. Apparently preheat temperature prior to spray drying process changes the product protein structures, or nature of lactose. I’m sure there is a study in the meat science literature but I haven’t found it yet… (edit, found some good research, will post below)

Anyways, sorry for long answer, your question just happened to coincide with a curent research interest;) I use a lot of dry milk for weekly yogurt, like you I’m wondering if I can just stock one version.

mrobisr congrats, well deserved!
GWG8541 also congrats!
I’ve very much enjoyed both your posts and always look forward to your comments.

This is a pretty amazing thing Walton’s is doing, I guess I should just say Austin and Jonathon . What an impressive and thoughtful community building step. It makes me feel darn good just to see this happen and read about it, puts a big smile on my face.

Cinco de Mayo!
Pork Butt on smoker, brown sugar/cumin/garlic rub, half for pulled pork and half diced up for carnitas.
Corn tortillas, guacamole, fresh pico de gallo, queso fresca. White sweet corn. Bud Lime with limes. Lime cilantro cole slaw.

Made kabanosy today. Marianski called it “the best meat stick in the world,” in his book. So that got me interested.

I used the recipe in Marianski’s book “Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages”. It is pretty simple: pork, 1.8% salt, 0.25% cure1, 0.2% black pepper, 0.1% each of sugar, nutmeg and caraway. 10% water. So for 1000g meat, that is 18g salt, 2g pepper etc.

Recipe uses sheep casings, but I used 21-23mm fresh collagen casings, which are the closest thing to actual sheep casings. I was happy with the Walton’s casings, very delicate. Here they are at top, next to some pepperoni 19mm sticks I also made tonight, to compare casings. Both thru a 12.7mm or half inch tube.

Short cook, 60 min light smoke then 30 min at higher temp to 155-160 IT. I used my pretty new Smokin It 3.5 smoker with about 2oz of cherry wood. Unfortunately I trusted the smokers meat probe and pulled it at 161f. Got inside and crosschecked with 3 Thermoworks digital thermometers, all at 132 f So lesson learned, don’t trust the smoker probe and always crosscheck. Had to put it all back on and cook another 1.5 hrs.

Taste is good and interesting. Apparently you dry these out a bit, about a week is supposed to be where most like them. Not sure I’d say they were better than beef venison sticks with Willie’s seasoning. But they are pretty unique and I never made a 100% pork stick before. I will report after a week or so in fridge drying a bit.

mrobisr glen gus4416 processhead Jonathon zbigjeff ND Mike Spidey
Thank you all for you kind congrats on the anniversary and meal. Apparently the 21st Anniversary is “brass” gifts, so… my wife was not overjoyed to unwrap a package of Hornady 7mm-08 brass! Luckily, I told her that was my gift, and had a hidden nice brass lamp for her! Thought some of you might find that wee joke funnier than she did at first

Double Bacon BLT. Used buckboard and side bacon. Homemade sourdough bread, grilled with mayo on one side and toasted on other.

I’ve had several kinds of bacon curing in the fridge, and was waiting for the thickest to time out so I could smoke it all at once. Today is the day!
11 lbs of bacon, pork belly
9 lbs of Buckboard bacon, pork butt cap
8 lbs of Canadian bacon, pork loin.

Doing a dry at 120f, then smoke 1 hr at 130, up to 145 for the belly, 155 for butt and loin.
Running a fan on top to pull air thru my almost airtight smoker for drying, and a wee trickle of cold smoke to keep flies away at lower temps.

Started a pork loin for Canadian bacon today, 7lbs. My first try at this.
Read a ton of different recipes. Was going to go with the pumped brine method in Marianski’s Home Production book, even bought a good injection pumper from Walton’s. That is a liquid brine, pump meat to 110% it’s start weight with brine, and soak in brine. But it is done brining in 5 days, and keeps getting saltier after that… and I will be on a trip unable to finish it then.

So I went with a dry rub or dry brine, using just the correct amount of salt etc, an “equilibrium brine”. Eric at 2guysandacooler youtube channel uses that method almost exclusively. Since I had a video of his to reference for good results with the recipe, I used his.

Read some outstanding dry brine research by former Bell Labs director Greg Blonder on rates of salt and nitrate penetration, final chemical distribution, etc, at genuineideas dot com if anyone us interested in some clever science, processhead mrobisr .

In 14 days or so I will smoke to 155 IT and see how it is!

Made some Branston Pickle for Christ.as gifts this year. If you’ve been to England, you’ll recognize this ubiquitous brown vegetable chutney that is served with sausages, cheese, meats etc. Indeed, if you ask anyone for a pickle in the UK, this is what they will hand you. I will post a full recipe and notes in a separate thread sometime soon, but saw this thread and wanted to share my most recent canning / pickle project.

Made my first smoked sausage after doing breakfast and Italian. Couple weeks ago. Have made various fresh chorizo and Italian mixes before with food processors.
Went with the hot smoked Polish sausage from Marianski book, 5kg/11 lbs, 12 lbs after water. Turned out fantastic, awesome authentic taste. Zero problems.

Ground meat with my 1hp Meat! #22 grinder, 10mm plate for meat and 4.5mm plate for fat. Used pork butt, but cut off most fat for separate grind. It was 4kg meat, 1kg fat. Mixed in 20lb mixer from Meat!, exact same as Walton one just different branding, 10 min or so to excellent protein extraction. Used vitamin c ascorbic acid as accelerant.

I used hog casings on sleeve from LEM. Used my grinder to stuff the 32mm cases to 12-14 inch. That wasn’t as easy as it could be, grinder came with plastic tubes with cone shape, made getting cases onto tube difficult. I also linked as I stuffed, next time I will stuff one rope then link after, would have been much faster.

Living in AZ, sausage was pretty dry to start. To achieve temperature schedule with my Traeger I did this:

1. Dry. I tossed links in convection oven on proof setting, around 120, with door open, for 30 min to dry. Could tell meat was really cured nice at end, I checked a couple and retied ends.
2. Smoke. Put all 12 lbs on Traeger on 2 levels, main plus a rack 2in higher I use for jerky. Turned on “smoke” start setting, lots of smoke generated and temp gradually rises. Average is 140 for 45 min or so, then rose to 160 to 180 after it began heating up metal.
3. Cook, on lowest setting after Smoke, which is 180f. Luckily it was a cold evening and smoker held 175 to 180f. About 90 min, total time 2+15.
4. Tossed in ice water to stop cooking and chill, 10min.
5. Storage. Bagged in gallon ziplocks bulk, froze. Vacuum sealed next day in smaller quantities of 4 or 5.

Lessons Learned.

1. Grinder stuffing is poor. Your wonderful texture and fat chunks get a bit smeared. Doesn’t feed much and gets smeared by worm drive, if you’re not pressing down on pestle. This makes one man stuffing very hard. I ended up turning grinder off after every link so it wouldnt smear while trying to get more meat into feed tube. So I did a link, off, made link, filled feed with sausage mix, grinder back on… yeah it worked but…
2. You guessed it, I immediately bought a 15 lb sausage stuffer. I liked design from Meat! Better than anything from LEM or here. No vertical feed pipe to hold a lot of meat, 100% steel gears, rated for small tube 10mm and snack sticks, wider than others so not as unwieldy tall, better hydraulics on area ratios.
3. I can only do 1 batch on Traeger then off and cool down. This time, I also made German brats while this was smoking. Unfortunately I put them on after Traeger had gotten up to 180, think I ended up with a bit of fat out on that 2nd batch. I will write that up separate, it was also a bit of a Hunter brat with 2 parts pork to 1 part venison to 1.6 parts pork fat.

So now I’m looking for a lower temp smoker
Sausage was great, have used for gumbo and cheese trays, kids love it!

First try of Willies seasoning, snack sticks. I really love the flavor, I’m a huge pepperoni fan and this is dang close. I think this may be my keeper flavor!

7.3 lb meat block of which 1480g venison, 400g pork fat, 900g ground beef 80/20, and 650 ml or so ice water. I ended up using more water than expected, 23%.

Some Italian med hot I made last month with sweet onions and green peppers. And a nice coleslaw with apple cider vinegar and a bit of ginger.

And I know this isn’t the drinking thread, but it is 80 F here in Phoenix, so I’m eating this lunch out on the patio with a Bud Lime, and I’m not ashamed!

Had relatives over, made a Charcuterie platter for them with my meat products. Everyone loved it!

1. Hot smoked polish sausage
2. Pastrami
3. Canadian bacon
4. Venison beef meat sticks
5. Cold smoked brined salmon i.e. nova lox
6. Also some smoke grilled chicken thighs