Made a batch of jalapeño popper sausage. I added 10 fresh jalapeños to the grinder to bump up the heat. Jonathan had said it was lacking on heat with just seasoning. It ended up with the perfect heat for me. Also did a batch of cheese burger cheddarwurst. I really like it also. I think I am going to use some to make a bacon cheese burger pizza.
I added 1 pound of bacon to each batch also. Hatch green chili is still my favorite fresh sausage/brat, but I think this is number 2 for me.

My take of Shotgun Shells using jalapeño popper brat seasoning.

1 1/2 pounds 80/20 ground beef
1.5 oz jolapeno popper brat seasoning
16 oz cream cheese (could use high temp cheese of choice)
2.5 oz water
1 package manicotti shells
1 pound bacon

Mix ground beef , water and jalapeño popper seasoning.
Mix in cream cheese.
Add mixture to piping bag with a large nozzle.
Pipe mixture into manicotti shells. Pipe half from one end and then fill from other end works well.
Wrap each shell with one slice of bacon. Try and cover the entire shell. Any exposed pasta will not soften during the smoke.
Smoke at 225-250 for 2 hours. Remove and enjoy.

I have made tons of whole muscle jerky but never restructured. When I bought the new stuffer during the Christmas sale, I added the jerky maker attachment to give it a go at some point. This weekend was the time. Started with 15 pounds of 93/7 ground beef. It was on sale for two bucks a pound cheaper than any whole cuts, so I used it instead of grinding my own. Added meat, seasoning, cure and smoked meat stabilizer to the mixer. After 4 minutes it dead stopped my #22 grinder attached to the mixer. Added 16 oz of water and it was turning again. This is the second time this week my #22 has dead stopped. Earlier this week it stopped while grinding pork and cream cheese at the same time. Wish I had waited 3 months to buy the grinder and gotten the new one with reverse. Anyway, got it all mixed up and into the stuffer with the jerky attachment. Man does that thing work slick! It made quick work cranking out two strips at a time. I can’t even imagine how much time it saved compared to using a jerky gun. Got them all extruded and did some in the oven and in the smoker. Both turned out excellent!

Couple lessons learned.

1. #15 of restructured jerky takes up a lot of space! I had my whole counter top plush the top of my deep freeze full of jerky on just the first run through the stuffer. It also takes a lot of room to cook it. The first run through the stuffer filled my smoker, my Traeger, and my oven. Second run filled my Traeger and oven.

2. I wish I didn’t have to add the water. The Traeger handled it but the smoker and convection oven both struggled to dry it out. 2 1/2 hours in the Traeger and 6 hours in both the smoker and oven.

Overall, the flavor and texture is great. I will definitely do it again.

Something satisfying about making corndogs with hotdogs I made myself.

In the ice bath

Casings stripped and drying

Pulled 2 from sous vide and strait onto buns

Overall rating is excellent! The taste is equal to if not better than the premium hot dogs. If you like Nathans, Hebrew Nation, or any other hot dog with that flavor profile you will love these.

My recipe was:
#5 ground chuck 73/27
.2 oz sure cure
.4 oz smoked meat stabilizer
.2 oz hickory smoke powder
1.2 oz sure gel
4.8 oz Frank and Bologna unit
6.4 oz water
1 1/2 cups ice cubes while in food processor.

Some of my favorites I have made.

Starting to get low on brats so I made 3 batches last night. From left to right, hatch green chili w/cheddar cheese. Jalapeño popper w/bacon, cream cheese and fresh jalapeños. Chicken (thighs) using hatch green chili, fresh jalapeños and bacon.

I have made about every flavor of brat and these three are my favorites that I will always have in the freezer. They are so good!

Had a pretty good weekend hunting. Fried quail sandwich for dinner last night.

Here is a printer friendly conversion of all the seasonings for 1-10 pound batches for anyone interested. I did all of them in an excel spreadsheet. You should print these out in landscape and it should pretty much fill the page. The seasoning weights are all in ounces. I will do the additives soon.

Edit: additives and cures have been added to the excel files

CLICK HERE FOR EXCEL FILE IN OUNCES

CLICK HERE FOR EXCEL FILE IN GRAMS

Did my first processing with the new grinder, mixer and stuffer. My old setup was #8 grinder, #20 mixer, and #5 stuffer. 12lb batch was the biggest I had done before. I decided to do a whole 25lb batch with the new setup.
First off was the grind. The new grinder is simply a beast! The first grind, I almost could’t feed the thing fast enough. The second grind blew me away. My old grinder would have taken an hour to second grind 25 pounds. The new grinder took 15 minutes. I only had to clear it with the stomper twice. My old grinder was stomper everything on second grind. Washed up grinder head and hooked up the #50 meat mixer. Dumped in 25 lbs of meat and turned it on. Dumped in seasoning, cure, sure gel, and smoked meat stabilizer. Added 40 oz of water after a minute and let the mixer run. I can’t tell awesome it was not to have to crank that handle! Although the mixer worked great, you do have to watch the sides and scrape it down here and there. This is where a reverse would be nice but not a big deal. Being able to tilt the mixer to unload it was also great. After mixing, the tub comes off for cleaning. Surprisingly the tub fit in my sink better than the #20 and cleaning it was pretty easy. On to stuffing. I used 19mm casings for the snack sticks. I struggled with stuffing at first. The handle was extremely hard to crank. There was so much pressure when trying to crank that the handle slipped out of my hand and did 3 fast turns backwards barely missing smacking me in the face by about an inch. After checking a couple things I realize the air valve is adjustable and shipped completely closed. After opening it up things were much better. Making 19mm snack sticks was still a little tougher to crank, but adjusting the air valve took the back pressure off so the handle didn’t spin out of control backwards when you let go of it. By the last refill, I was stuffing like a pro. Overall, even though I had done grinding, mixing, and stuffing before, there was a learning curve on the bigger equipment. Overall, I did #25 in about 1/4 of the time it would have taken with the previous equipment. Looking forward to many more big batches.

Finished up my corned beef and then made Rueben’s.

Made Kielbasa for the first time yesterday. It turned out incredible! In the top 3 of things I have made. I used the pork sirloin roast I picked up a while back.

8 pounds pork sirloin
4 1/2 pounds back fat
.5 oz sure cure
3 oz sure gel
.4 oz hickory smoke powder
1 oz smoked meat stabilizer
11.5 oz Signature Kielbasa seasoning
16 oz water
40mm collagen casings

Ground 4 pounds of pork and all fat through 3/16” plate once. Ground 4 pounds of pork through 1/8” plate twice. Put everything in the mixer for 8 minutes. Stuffed into 40mm collagen casings.

120 for 30 min
130 for 30 min
140 for 30 min
150 for 30 min
160 for 30 min
170 for 7 hours
205 for 45 minutes

Late last night, internal was only 130 degrees, so I just left it on and went to bed. Woke up at 5:30 this morning to check it. Internal was only 146. So I cranked it up to 205. Checked it at 6:30 and hit 160. Pulled them, put them a in tub in the sink with cold water running in tub while I took shower and got ready for work. Stripped the casing on one and sliced it up. OMG was the flavor awesome. I refrigerated the rings and baggied up the rest of the slices to snack on at work today.

Was a summer sausage weekend for me. #15 un-trimmed brisket, #3 un-trimmed pork but, #2 pork fat using Jalapeño snack stick seasoning and lava jack cheese. The taste is outstanding!

I have been eating on my batch of hatch green chili brats for about a month. They have overtaken blue ribbon as my favorite. Made them with high temp cheddar and dang are they good! If you haven’t tried them yet, highly recommended.

Cowboy Ribeye tonight for me and my daughter.

Ultimate Steak and Roast

Cooked at 225 degrees till internal temp of 110

Seared about 3 minutes on each side

Finished product

My version of the McRib. I cooked a couple test patties just to check flavor, but this is my first full blown McRib sandwich.

Took my other corned beef and made Pastrami out of it. Beats walmart deli pastrami all day long!

Some grilled chicken using Butcher BBQ Grilling Addiction and corn on the cob with Ultimate Steak and Roast Rub.

My cousin had 2 chamber vacs so she sold me one. She does a lot of freeze dried items, and said she uses the chamber vac to seal the jars to store her freeze dried stuff. I said what?? So she showed me and it actually works pretty slick. So you need to screw the lid on just barely finger tight. Lay it down in the vac chamber, or stand it up if your chamber is tall enough. Then run the vac cycle. It will suck the seal onto the jar. The key is tightening the lid the right amount. It may take you a couple tries, but once you know how tight to start, you can repeat it every time.

Click Here to see My video on you tube of how it works

My first go at Salami. It turned out amazing! Made more bologna and some snack sticks. That bologna is hard to stuff in large casing without voids. Need more practice on that. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. I can’t say enough about how helpful Meatgistics is. When making something new, I do a lot of searching on here for information to help me out.

Recipe for salami was:
2 1/2 pounds 73/27 ground beef
2 1/2 pounds pork butt with fat
1/2 pork back fat
4.58 oz Walton’s Cotto Salami seasoning
.2 oz sure cure
1.2 oz sure gel
Additional pepper corns (didn’t measure just dumped some in)
8oz water

Ground pork butt through 3/8” plate twice
Ground the burger through a 3/16” plate twice
Ground pork fat through 3/8” plate once frozen

Mixed beef, pork, seasoning, cure, binder and water for 7 minutes. Added pork fat and pepper corns and mixed for another minute.

Smoke schedule:
120 for an hour
130 for an hour
140 for an hour
150 for an hour
160 for an hour
Souse vide @ 175 for 2 1/2 hours in vac bag.