Creating a group for every brand of smoker, would be awesome, but not sure that you want to really have that many groups. Rather than being brand or model specific, what do you think about grouping the smokers into similar categories because the methods for smoking in each can be very different and some methods are tailored to specific styles of smoker.

I could see leaving the PK-100 and other smokers that Walton’s sells in a separate group, but for the rest of the smokers grouping by smoker type might be a little more valuable.

just a rough draft of what the groups could look like:

High-End Electric (Pro Smoker, CookShack, Smokin-It, SmokinTex, etc.)
Bargain Electric - (Masterbuilt, Smoke Chef, Smoke Hollow, Big Chief, etc.)
Wood/Charcoal (Oklahoma Joe, Weber, Pit Barrel, etc.)
Ceramic (Big Green Egg, Kamado Joe, Broil King, etc.)
Pellet (Traeger, Green Mountain, Pit-Boss, Grilla, etc.)

No offense intended to the bargain electrics, but the higher end electric smokers are definitely different beasts from the bargain smokers.

Thank for the acknowledgement! I originally found Walton’s Inc and started ordering my meet supplies well before this. The earliest receipt that I could find in my records was from February 2014, but I think I had some orders prior to that that I didn’t save.

I initially found Walton’s Inc in my search for the Excalibur Smokehouse BBQ Seasoning (which is still my favorite all-around BBQ Seasoning) and have been ordering all kinds of stuff from seasonings to equipment.

I am looking forward to the new grinders and mixers that you have coming!

Hopefully my family can harvest some deer this year to use all this great stuff!

NDKoze

cdavis Yeah, I just get crazy busy and don’t have time to go to my favorite forums. I am actually technically a Moderator on the Smokin-It forum, but haven’t been out there for awhile now either.

I still love my Smokin-It smoker, but have since been using my Grilla Pellet Poopers more than the trusty Smokin-It #3. I did use it this past weekend though in combination with my Grilla Chimp to get all of that country style sausage done and it worked great as usual.

The one tip that I will give you regarding the Jerky Dryer is to not put that on until your smoke phase is done because the excess air will just blow all of that smoke out of the cooking chamber and the excess oxygen will most likely result in your wood catching fire. I usually smoke for about 2-3 hours and then put the dryer on.

Hopefully this helps.

Just a quick follow-up here. We had a very successful sausage weekend and the Krautwurse turned out excellent!

We ended up using 6lbs of kraut to a 35lb meat block. We did saute the kraut as suggested in this thread and that seemed to be effective. I did also reduce the Tender Quick amount from 9.8 ounces to 8.8 and it turned out really well. We will definitely be making this again with a few small changes:

1. I will use more kraut. There was good kraut flavor, but it could have had more. I will use at leave 1 pound per every 5 pounds if not slightly more.
2. I might reduce the salt just a little bit more. This wasn’t bad, but I might cut it down another .5-1.0 ounce.

The one thing that I will caution anyone who tries this is that you should expect the smoking time to be a little longer (or at least it was in my experience). I had some regular sausage in the smoker with the Krautwurst batch (same recipe except no kraut) and the Krautwurst took quite a bit longer to get the temp and color that we like to get because of the inherent extra moisture that these rings had versus our traditional sausage.

But, in general, it turned out AWESOME!

I agree with what Kyle said above. I would wait to add the seasoning for all of the reasonings that he said.

I have ground and let my meat block sit overnight MANY times, but never mixed any of the seasonings until I was ready to mix.

I daily only use ECA for Summer Sausage and I love it for that. I don’t like it as much in snack sticks.

Dang, I missed my entry for today. I bet that would have been the one.

KnucklHed BBQ

KnucklHed BBQ said in breakfast sausage:

doc_craig I’ve used the Holly Regular breakfast sausage seasoning and friends & family love it in links or patties.
I’d recommend mixing up a 1lb batch per the directions and fry up a patty and then adjust up or down from there.

I’ve got written down in my notes that I liked the flavor at 10 grams of seasoning per lb, that would make the 1/2lb pkg that it comes in season 22.4lbs of meat (the directions would be 8.96 grams per lb)

FYI - I thinks it’s always a good idea to fry up a test patty before you commit to stuffing or packaging, and for some reason I find that you always want the patty to taste a slight bit saltier than you really want if you’re making links, I find that the perfect patty usually makes kind of a boring link, dunno why tho…

Best of luck!

+1 Knucklehead

I too have found that when I make patties they should taste a little too salty. After stuffing them in hot casings and smoking they always taste perfect. If the pre-stuffed patty tastes just right, then I know the stuffed/smoked sausage will be too light on the sausage.

I don’t have an explanation either. Maybe Austin or John will have an explanation unless it is just you and I that experience this

Another thing you can do when cold smoking to keep the liquid out is to fill/freeze 1 or 2 liter soda bottles with water. This keeps the moisture in the bottles and not in the smoking chamber.

Just installed the app. I’ll be checking it out later tonight.

It’s awesome to see you guys always introducing new things and staying up-to-date on the trends.

You could mix in some Boston Butt with the wild hog, say 30-50%.

Yeah, I used to ask a lot of questions to customer service before we had this community. You guys were always so helpful.

I have sent many people your way over the years especially via the http://www.smokinitforums.com/ product form (for Smokin-It Smokers) where I am a moderator.

Snack stick seasoned meat gets really sticky the longer that it sets and could be really tough on your stuffer to push that stuff through the smoker the next day. As others have said, the fresh sausage or even summer sausage would probably be OK. But, trying to push that sticky mix into snack stick casings would be a bear.

I really like to stuff all of my sticks and sausage right after grinding/mixing and then let hang overnight which allows the casings to dry out a bit prior to going in the smoker.

Obviously if you use the encapsulated citric acid, you need to stuff and smoke pretty quickly or the ECA will burst and mess up your batch.

Last weekend, we did grind up 250 lbs of meat on Friday night and let it set (covered) in our garage (nice and cool in ND), then mixed and stuffed the next day.

This Fall, I bought some Sauerkraut Sausage in a small hometown grocery store meat market that was delicious.

My family has been making our homemade smoked German ring sausage for several generations now with just some very basic ingredients (Salt, Pepper, Garlic). But, after trying this Sauerkraut Sausage, we would like to try replicating this in our sausage (We still make plenty of sausage and stix with Walton’s Seasonings as well ).

I did some searching and found a few posts about adding sauerkraut to Reuben Brats. But, none where the sauerkraut was more of a main ingredient.

• So, I am looking for some advice on how much sauerkraut to add per pound? We usually make 35lb batches, but I can covert the amounts for whatever ratio you can suggest. I am just looking for a guideline to start with.

• Also, since sauerkraut can be somewhat salty, do you think that I should be adjusting the recipe’s salt amounts down at all?

• Are there any recommendations for the prepping of the sauerkraut other than draining the liquid I am assuming?

I think I would like to try the Reuben Brats some time too as the comments/reviews seem to be pretty positive. But, we want to start with the addition to our regular sausage first.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions that you can provide.

NDKoze

Jonathon I just ran across this post again for some reason and remembered that there was supposed to be a “Care Package” or something coming.

Just kidding. You don’t have to send me anything. I have received much more value in knowledge since this whole thing started in 2016.

I don’t post a ton, but I do read quite a bit.

Thanks for all of the work that you guys do!

They used to have a BBQ Bootcamp that they did in the summer where you were able to attend a bunch of sessions and then have a huge feast of a variety of BBQ foods at the end of the camp. I haven’t seen them do this for the past couple of years though.

I don’t think you would need to break down the high temp cheese. I use this quite frequently and have never had a problem expecially with 21mm casings. Cheese does make the stuffing a little harder, so if you ever decide to try the smaller 17MM or less casings, I would not use cheese on those.

I use 22mm casings (because that is what my local meat market sells/uses) for most of our snack sticks or 21mm if I order them from Walton’s and they are a pretty standard size. My guess is that the 21s are probably the most frequently purchased size, but I could be wrong.

I tried some 17’s one time just for the heck of it and they were a lot closer to a slim jim after they were smoked. I don’t really like them that small. But, this is obviously a subjective preference.

Yeah, I think they used some Big Green Eggs as well as some others. I went to it twice and they had several different types of smokers running at the one that I went to.

It was a really cool fun course/day and I hope they bring it back again.

blackjac We did keep and cook up a couple of rings of the non-smoked Krautwurst and they were VERY good. I might even say that the sauerkraut taste was a little more pronounced in the fresh non-smoked sausage.

IndianaJohn Yeah, a 15 mm horn would definitely be too big for 21mm casings to slide on without unraveling.

This is a table that I copied from a Walton’s Collagen casing page:

I think you have documented some pretty good suggestions for if you have to leave your mixed meat in the fridge overnight.

I would much prefer to stuff into the casings and then hang them overnight. I smoke all of my sausages during the winter or early Spring or late Fall time periods so that I can hang my sticks in my garage over night. I prefer this to putting in the fridge because this allows the stuffed sausage/stix to be separated from each other to start drying the outside of the casings prior to adding to the smoker.

This is what I call my Sausage Rack 1000 :face_with_stuck-out_tongue_winking_eye: