I conducted an experiment this weekend. I took a pork loin and used about 15 pounds of water, 1 oz celery juice powder, 3 ounces bacon taste booster, and 2.5 pounds all natural ham and bacon cure. I mixed all ingredients and injected into a pork loin that was about 11 pounds. I then placed the loin and the remaining liquid in a stark bucket lindr and left it over night in the fridge. I smoked it on Sunday using the following 30 minutes at 120 30 at 125 30 at 140 and then at 180 until the internal temp was 158. The product was extremely salty so I soaked in ice water for about an hour. It turned out like seasoning ham. Probably will use in beans or peas. Next time I will use the maple cure as John did. I was really concerned about the maple in that cure. I probably could go with 2 pounds or less of the all natural cure but I didn’t care for having to deal with the celery juice powder. I didn’t see it on Waltons site except for in a fize pound bag. I purchased else where and it was just one big clumpy mess all sticky and stuck together. I sliced the loin into small pieces and used the vacmaster vp112s to seal in quart bags. ALl was a success because while the product is salty it is useable and I did learn a lot from this adventure. Nothing makes me happier than processing meats. I really wish I could find a job doing this after.

Looking to see if anyone uses the above knife. I would like to know if this would work for slicing bacon. I’m ok with thick slices but want them to be unifrom. Just isn’t that much of a demand for a totally blind meat processor. (no joke)

I have no problem oin to the conversion chart and ettin the amounts. Simple math can be used to convert seasonins and thins. Hell I am totally blind and have made ham, jerkey, bacon, and many other thins usin the seasonins from Walton’s inc.

Jonathon I did i t. We smoked the whole boneless ribeye and it was awesome. We seasoned with a bit of everything. Wrapped in foil Saturday all day until Sunday around noon. We put the ribeye in the smoker, with water in the water pan. We kept the fire as close to 225-250 as we could. We used hickory and some pecan wood. We let the internal temp get to 127 and removed the meat from the smoker. We wrapped in foil and placed in a small ice chess for about 2 and a half hours. We removed unrapped and sliced. We had a nice bark and the flavor was great. THe meat was juicy and had picked up just the right amount of smoke. This is a do-over. (ALL WAS GREAT FOR THE GAME) GEAUX TIGERS!!!

I used the dry rub to start curing bacon. It was all covered with the rub. I checked it last night. I have 2 pieces. I have the fat side down on the bottom one and the fat side up on the top one. The 2 meat sides are still covered with the rub but it seems as though the fat caps aren’t covered with the rub. I know I started out with both sides of both pieces of pork belly covered. Can I put some more cure on the fat sides or is this normal? ALso, I have some of the poly meat pans. Can smoked chickens or other done foods be placed in these pans or not?

So I can vacuum seal the belly with the vac sealer and after the 5 to 7 days remove it and smoke it?

I purchased some of the smaller meat lugs and some lug liners. Are the lugs and liners safe to make bacon in? I am trying the dry rub bacon and don’t want to get sick or ruin pork belly. Also when the bacon makes liquid in the lug do you pour that out each time you flip the pork belly over?

I’ve smoked a whole ribeye before but don’t remember what I did. I want to get the meat up to 135 degrees f. and then wrap in aluminum foil. After that I want to place it into an ice chess for a few hours then slice thin and make sandwiches. This is going to be done on SUnday for the LSU football game. Problem is, I am not sure where to start the smoking temperature or what kind of wood to use. I’m thinking hickory so that the flavor will get into the ribeye. Not sure if I need to put water in the water pan for this or not. I viewed videos that put the smoker at 275 to start with but I’m worried that the meat will dry out at that temp. ANy ideas, thoughts, suggestions?

Jonathon Thanks for trying Jonathon. Many wouln’t even do that. I’ll just write down the possible settings and write the last one that I used so that the next time I use it I’ll know where it was set. Some times there are no little tricks that make these things easy but you tried. Some devices can be set to defaults and some do this when they are unplugged and plugged in again. Another thing is the bags are cheap enough, I can make a few to see what is happening and adjust the unit accordinly. Didn’t get this far in life by giving up always some way to get it done. I’m planning on trying the hot dogs this weekend. I am going to use the collagen casing and I’ll post on how it goes. Thanks again.

Ok so the vacmaster vp112s is arriving tomorrow. I can’t wait. I have a few questions about its operation. I am aware that you can change the seal time and the vac time. Once these are changed are they stored in a memory even if the machine is unplugged? Since I can’t see I need to know if there is a way to get the times and vac strength back to say factory defaults so that I know where I am. Is this possible or will I just need to remember what they are set on from the last time I used the unit? ALso, what is the size bag for the chamber sealewrs closest to a pint, quart, and gallon?

I did it. I purchased the vacmaster vp112s. I went with the 112 because I don’t care for the auto lid on the 120. Motor sounds strained. One less mechanical thing to go wrong. The braille on the vac bags held up and I look forward to know what my frozen bags contain for the first time in my life. As usual the people at walton’s were extremely helpfull. Austin sent me sample bags to try and I have also been working with Jonathon to get my hot dogs right among other things. I found the 112s cheaper but the people didn’t want to assist at all. The amount of money wasn’t that much and these days customer service is lacking in a lot of places…I am totally happy but can’t wait until the sealer arrives tomorrow. Thanks walton’s for all you do. Another issue is that I am totally blind but not one of the Walton’s staff said wait you can’t do that you can’t see. I assist my brother with meat processing and even go on the hunt for deer. I also buy in bulk and freeze. I grind my own meat with a weston #32 grinder, mix with the weston meat mixer, and stuff with a waltons 7 pound stuffer. I smoke with a smoke hollow 44 propane smoker and a master built 30 inch electric smoker. I really hope that one day I can afford the smokers that Waltons sells. I think it is the pk100. Now I can’t wait to store things using the vacmaster vp112s.

Austin Austin, I received the bags. Great news, I wrote using braille on 3 or 4 bags and put them in the freezer. I checked a few times last night and the braille was still there. I also placed a label on 1 bag using dymo tape. It seemed to stick well. I plan on leaving the bags in the freezer all weekend to see what happens. If I still have label with or braille or braille on the bag after the weekend I’ll purchase the vp112s. My thinking is that I don’t need the automatic lid. Just one more thing to go wrong.

gerygaub That would be gret Austin. I was terribly disappointed in the other company I was dealing with concerning the vacuum sealer. The address you have on file would totally work and that is awesome that you would send a few for me to check out whether or not it will work. Like your site says, family business. You guys are totally awesome to work with. I anxiously await the bags. Thanks!!

I recently made a batch of cheeseberger cheddarwurst sausage. I used the xcaliber cheeseberger cheddarwurst seasoning. I had about 6 pounds of ground serloin. I put the specified amount of seasoning and added about 2 pounds of bacon. I ground this and re-ground it through a 3mm grinding plate. I mixed in a bit over an ounce of carrot fiber and also added a pound of high temp cheddar cheese. It turned out great. I have a pic of the sausages but since I am blind I can’t post it. I would be glad to send to someone to post. I also experimented with collagen casing and as well as hog casing as can be seen in the picture.

I am considering purchasing a vacuum sealer. I am considering either the vacmaster vp112s or vp120. I am trying to find out if there is bag material above where the sealer creates the seal. I am looking for 1 bag to see if I can braille on it if there is material above the seal. For someone without sight, all bags in the freezer feel cold and there isn’t really a way to distinguish what is in a bag. If you attempt to feel shapes in the bags you loose feeling in your fingers and give up rather quickly. You then have to wait for sighted help. I’m looking for 1 bag to see if this is even a possibility.

I have some ground serloin. About 6 pounds. I put that with about 2 pounds of bacon. I plan to use the cheese burger cheddar wurst seasoning and some carrot fiber. I will also be putting about a pound of high temp cheddar cheese. I plan on putting that in casing and calling it bacon cheese burder cheddar wurst. Hoping the beef doesn’t make it dry, the carrot fiber and the bacon should help with moisture.

Jon, I tried to answer your questions about the hot dogs. This page isn’t totally user friendly for a blind person that uses speech and braill to access computers. So to recap;

1. I used about a pint or so of water, approximately 1.5 to 1.8 ounces carrot fiber, a bit less than half of the seasoning pack, and cellulos casing.
2. I stuffed the casings and tried to twist. The twists came undone when I cut the hot dogs to the length I wanted.
3. I followed the reccomended smoking schedule.
4. I got the internal temp up to 136 but it didn’t go higher. Could be my thermometer. I am going to try a blue tooth thermometer next time if I can get it to work with voice over on the iphone.
5. When the temp wouldn’t rise I eventually removed the hot dogs from the smoker. WHen I went to place them on a pan, the meat came out of the casing. The texture was dry and crumbly.
   in conclusion I have a few questions.
6. Why did the temp not rise or did it and my thermometer not pick it up?
7. Why did the casing not stay swisted and closed?
8. Since the casing didn’t stay closed could this be the reason the product was dry?
9. Should I use a different casing like collagen?

I’d really like to find a good thermometer that works with blue tooth and voice over on an iphone but don’t have the money to keep buying them to try them out.

Sorry for the long post it’s really different for a person who has no sight because I can’t be sure that the thermometer was working properly, I can’t tell you what the product looked like. Thanks for patience and understanding and trying to assist.

I attempted hot dogs easter weekend. I used the cellulos casing, when I twisted the hot dogs the meat came out when I cut them because the twist didn’t stay. I could never get the temp where it needed to be for doneness. The hot dogs came right out of the casing and they were dry and crumbly. I used the correct amount of hot dog seasoning, i used carrot fiber and water. I had about 10 pounds of ground meat and used about 1.5 to 1.8 ounces of carrot fiber. I followed the smoke schedule too. ANy thoughts ideas I did use ground beef 80 20 but I did grind it 3 times and mixed really well about 8 minutes like suggested in the waltons video.

I wonder if anyone has the 44 pound meat mixer from Weston. I recently went to use mine and realized I am missing parts. On the opposite side of the handles on the mixer there is the metal piese that you slide in and the 2 screws that you use the allan wrench to tighten. What ever there is after this piece is missing. Can anyone assist so that I can purchase the correct part/parts. Not sure if there was a knob or a spring or just what is gone.