Jonathon Riggins sounds a lot like my Deutsch-Drahthaar (German Wire Haired Pointer). I was given first pick of a very large litter, I think there were 13 or 14 pups. The only one that acted birdy was the runt of the litter. I named him Goose. He refused to answer to Goose, so I changed it to Dux. Dux is going on 5 years old now. The runt is now right at 110 pounds and is a hard headed, hard charging dog. He ran into me going full tilt and broke my leg. He growls, He growls if you are doing something he doesn’t like. He growls if you are doing something he like. He growls when you stop doing what he likes. This is the 6th of this breed of dog I have owned, and by far is the strangest of them. I took him to a professional dog trainer that works with hunting dogs. He called about a week in and said that Dux is the strangest dog he had ever worked with. I guess we make a good pair.

Jonathon You should be giving Riggins a treat. He noticed that you needed a new fishing rod and arranged for that to happen in the best way he knew how. Good boy Riggins.

Dave in AZ: I do not have any experience with the Walton 10 in slicer but I have gone through the search for a slicer thing. I started out with a small 8" plastic slicer. That was before I started doing bacon. I quickly decided that I needed to upgrade. The largest slicer I could get to fit on my kitchen counters was a 10" slicer. I was not familiar with Walton’s at the time. I hate to buy things sight unseen so I went to Cabela’s and bought one of their “Commercial” grade 10" slicers. The carriage travel just wasn’t long enough to do whole slabs of bacon. I had to bend the slabs and tie them to get a whole slice. I looked at the Cabela’s 12 in slicer and the carriage travel was not much longer than the 10". Someone on another forum told me to start looking for a used Hobart or Berkel 12" slicer. I found a used Hobart locally for $175.00. I made sure that it ran and the blade didn’t wobble before I bought it. I found a place that had a blade sharpener and they did a tune up on the slicer. This took the total cost to $500.00. Since this slicer is to heavy for me to pickup and move around I bought a stainless steel cart with wheels. This slicer is simply a beast when it comes to slicing bacon and it will cut up to 7/8" thick. Just a thought.

calldoctoday We must be close to the same age. I never worried about going belly down on the creek bank to get a good long drink of cool water.

Thanks Dave. The recipe I had years ago used salt, brown sugar, and some other spices. I really liked it. I had it saved on my computer but have changed computers a number of times since then and it didn’t get transferred over during one of the changes.

Just depends on how fancy you want to go and where you live. I get blocks of Tillamook cheese here in Idaho as well as some Idaho "craft cheese. I can get the blooks at the local grocery store. Walmart and Costco usually have it as well. If you are looking for specialty cheese Costco has some in store and more can be ordered. If you need to have it mailed to you, you can try this place: https://delidirect.com/wisconsin-specialty-cheeses/. I have not used them simply because I can get most anything I want locally, and they seem to be a little pricy to me.

My kids caught a bunch of trout in the 12" range. They want them smoked. Do any of you have a good recipe for smoked trout?

My Wife picked out her Mother’s day and Birthday present. She collects turquoise jewelry so she picked this out to go with it. This is a Kimber Micro 9 Bel Air 9mm. That is my paw holding it.

Jonathon Jon: Just some advice from someone that has been there and done that. Please find a shooting range with good instructors and different firearms that they will either let the students shoot or rent for your wife. This will let your wife learn to shoot from people that are able to see and quickly identify problems and correct them before they become habits. Your wife will also get to shoot a number of different firearms in different configurations. That little Glock 43 might turn into something completely different by the end of the class.

My Loving and long suffering wife and my 2 daughters are shooters. My Eldest was the Women’s National Collegiate air pistol champion and a 2 time All American in women’s air pistol and a 2 time All American in Women’s Sport Pistol. Her name is the first to appear on the Melaragno Trophy https://competitions.nra.org/media/8193/tro-170-melaragno.pdf . I did not teach any of the 3 to shoot. I found instructors for them.

I really want one in .300 Black Out or .350 legend.

Dave in AZ : I have never done just a brisket flat or a whole packer fast and hot. The smoker I do my briskets in is a Cookshack SMO66. This is a cabinet type smoker and it only goes to 300 degrees. The smoker does cook with a very moist environment. I do remember reading about people that cooked flats on the old Cookshack forum. I just remember that there were complaints about the flats turning out dry. You might want to have a plan ready if you notice that your flat is drying out. Something to spritz it with or a pan you can put it in with a little liquid. I am just guessing on this since I haven’t done brisket the way you are doing them. I can second Midwest-kc on the let it rest for a couple of hours. I use an old ice chest for this. I put a pan of hot water in the chest to get things warm and place the briskets in a pan that will fit into the chest. Cover the pan with foil and put it into the chest to get happy. You can use this method to hold meat in for 4 to 6 hours. Works great if you need to transport something from the smoker or grill to a gathering.

zbigjeff I just did a search for cooking with cottage cheese. There are a ton of recipes using cottage cheese in things like lasagna and cheese cake. That reminded me of a lemon blue berry cheese cake recipe that I made for my Mom years ago. She was diabetic and the cake didn’t use any sugar but did use cottage cheese. Now I am wondering how that would taste with smoked cottage cheese. I may just have to give it a try.

Smoked Swiss like Jarlsberg is really good on a slice of fresh crisp apple. I used to be able to get blocks of Jalapeno or habanero pepper and cheddar cheese here but can’t find them anymore. They were really good. I have been doing around 50 pounds of cheese a year. The softer cheeses tend to take on more smoke than the harder type cheese. I have smoked fresh mozzarella but it is sort of a PITA. You have to wrap it in wet cheese cloth and really keep an eye on the smoker temp. It is good on home made pizza. I have heard that people have successfully smoked cottage cheese but really don’t know why you would want smoked cottage cheese.

You can make all of your bacon using the equilibrium process. You can do it as a dry brine or a wet brine. The wet brine does take more cure because you are figuring both the weight of the meat and the water instead of just the weight of the meat. I have been using this process for a number of years and have made regular bacon or “Side bacon” using pork belly, Canadian bacon or “Back bacon” using pork loin, and “Buckboard bacon” using pork butt. There is a calculator that many people use at: http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html . I have a program that works in Excel that does basically the same thing as the diggingdog farm calculator but is printable. I found it on another forum years ago. I can’t remember which forum or who came up with it. I can’t post it here, I have tried. I can send it to anyone that wants it via email (rmbrad@sitestar.net). The great thing about these calculators is that you can change the amount of salt and sugar you use in the cure. JUST DO NOT CHANGE THE AMOUNT OR CURE #1. We found that the 2% salt used in the diggingdog calculator wasn’t salty enough for us and the 3% salt used in the Excel program was too salty. Through trial and error we hit on 2.125% salt and have been using since. Once you find the amount of salt and sugar you like you can repeat your results every time. You can add other flavorings to your bacon, just remember that any flavor they add will be subtle. I do my bacon using Black Rifle coffee as an added flavor. I also do one with a Sweet Heat rub. Most of these rubs do contain salt and or sugar so they can effect how salty or sweet your bacon turns out. Making bacon isn’t that hard and your end results will be better than anything you can get in the store.

calldoctoday : I get recipes from several different sources. This one came from Thermoworks. The article is really good about the hows and whys of doing corned beef. They actually go from the beef brisket through the curing process and then cooking. https://blog.thermoworks.com/beef/thermal-tips-st-patricks-day-corned-beef/ .

Thermoworks sent me a recipe for doing Corned beef. I didn’t have time to actually corn the beef like they did so I used a couple of store bought corned beef. My wife had picked up 2 of these from Costco. They were very well trimmed. I think they were actually too well trimmed as they didn’t have any fat on them. I put them in the smoker with hickory and cherry wood and set the smoker for 225 degrees. When they reached 160 degrees internal temp I pulled them out and put them in a pan with a little water and covered them with foil. They went back in the smoker until they hit 190 degrees internal temp. I really didn’t like the look of them, they sort of looked like 2 lumps of chocolate. I fired up the grill and when it was hot I did a reverse sear on them. They really turned out good with great texture and concentrated flavor.

I build fishing rods and always test them before handing them off to the customer. I was at the local lake and was test casting a new fly rod. I had a white cork bass popper tied on just to have something on the line. The popper ran into a foam line and I hooked up solid with a large ( for here) carp. Took a good long time to get it played to the point I could release it. There are a lot of people fly fishing for carp now I am sure that if you do a search for this you will get a lot of information. They are a hoot to catch.

GWG8541 I turn the cheese so that all 4 sides get good smoke.

johnsbrewhouse I have a chef store about a mile away from me here in Nampa, Idaho. I haven’t seen the oak pellets at this store. I have used the bear mountain pellets.

gus4416 Yoshi copper grill mats.