calldoctoday I bet you are ready for some solid food after a few weeks of eating soup.

megajunk That recipe looks similar to what I did. Except I used Sure Gel instead of Carrot Fiber and I did not use any ECA (I don’t care for the tangy flavor that adds). But you won’t have to hold overnight before starting your thermal process. I added that same amount of water – it may have made the mixture a bit too wet, which is what took longer to get them up to the target internal temp.

You will thank yourself for getting the meat mixer. I had the same thought about not getting good protein extraction with trying to mix by hand.

I don’t see any high-temp cheese in your list??? We really enjoyed the Hot Pepper Cheese and the Cheddar Cheese pieces in the summer sausage.

Hopefully you have larger than a 5lb stuffer. That’s all I have and it took several reloads to get through the 25lbs of meat.

Fred Thanks for the Welcome. I got certified to be a KCBS judge, just so I’d know what judges are looking for when we started competing. I judged at a couple of comps to see what other teams were turning in. Looking forward to learning a lot from everyone here – and hopefully, some day, I’ll be able to help out another newbie to this wonderful hobby.

Joe Hell hey, what’s a little more meat in the smoker. Still uses the same amount of wood to cook it all.

Supposed to be a chance of snow this weekend down around our lake place in SE Oklahoma. So what better time to just sit inside in front of the fire, and watch the graph on the laptop as I monitor the cook in the smoker. I’ll look out the window occasionally to see the glorious smoke rolling out of the stack.

Joe Hell Looking forward to hearing how that goes with the shoulder. I’ll be making some normal burnt ends this weekend when I toss a big packer brisket into the smoker. We’ll be using the flat as chopped for toppings on pizza (found a Keto friendly recipe for a pizza crust that came out awesome). Then I’ll cube up the point for some burnt ends to eat for lunches next week.

Parksider Wow, that looks awesome!

ramt600 Not sure why the casings wouldn’t stick after thawing. I ran into this same issue with the venison summer sausage I made recently. When I take a sausage out of the freezer to thaw, the casing is all but about to fall off. Since I take the casing off anyway (since it’s not editable), I didn’t think much about it and was actually happy that the casing came off so easily.

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Joe Hell I’m right there with you.

Jonathon those bacon burnt ends looks awesome. I might have to try this same thing with a pork butt that I cure as buckboard bacon – and just leave some of it to make burnt ends.

Joe Hell That looks awesome! Nicely done. I think I will have to try something like this soon (minus the pastry crust). And I might even have to leave out the potatoes (we are also on the Keto diet so I try to cut any carb that I easily can). Wow, don’t think I’ve ever heard of Duck broth – probably not available at the local WalMart LOL.

calldoctoday I have never brined a pork butt. We used to inject them when we competed, but that was to impact as much flavor as we could in a small bite that a judge would take. For cooking at home, I don’t inject. But I do like more bark for pulled pork sammiches. So before cooking, I’ll remove the bone and butterfly the pork butt to get more surface area. I’ll slather it with mustard then apply black pepper and Head Country rub and into the smoker at 250 till it reaches about 165 internal temp. Then I’ll wrap it in double-layer of HD foil with a stick of butter on the top of the butt and sprinkle a good amount of brown sugar and more Head Country rub around the butt (on the foil, not directly on the butt) and then I’ll pour in about 1/4 cup of Old Orchard Apple Strawberry Banana Juice Cocktail. Wrap that back up tight and back into the smoker – I’ll take it to 202 if I’m going to be shredding it. When we competed, we would slice the money muscle into medallions – so I’d only take that butt to 190 so it would slice beautifully without falling apart.

It’s probably hard to see my profile pic, but that was one of our turn-in boxes at a competition in Claremore, OK the year we took 2nd place in Pork (the team that took 1st place had a perfect score, so I’d take 2nd to a perfect score any day). Here’s a larger view of that pic.

okkipp I just made my first batch of summer sausage over New Years. I used the 2.4" fib casings. Doing the same 125/140/155/170 schedule using my Dad’s 30" Masterbuilt, it took almost 10 hours to get to 160 internal temp. But I think I may have had a little too much water in the mix, which meant longer time time evaporate it out of the summer sausage and allow the meat to get to temp. But, just like smoking any meat — It’s Done When It’s Done. You want to go by internal temp of the meat, not the time.

Another thing that may have lead to such a long time to get to temp, I had 21 summer sausages hanging in that 30" smoker. So there wasn’t a lot of empty space. I have the 40" Masterbuilt and I think with the extra room, I would have had a little more space between sausages, which might have helped with getting them to temp quicker.

Hartmann Great job on the homemade cold smoke box. That should produce some really great results for you.

marctrejo IMO it was the mixing by hand that may have caused the issue. I just recently made my first 25lb batch of summer sausage. I was worried about being able to get the mix done correctly by hand, so I also ordered a 44# meat mixer – and I’m really glad that I did. I think that allowed the better distribution of cure and binder for the protein extraction.

Midgetracer31 I’d be concerned doing straight chicken breast won’t give you enough fat ratio (even if you add in the skins). You could probably use 100% chicken thighs. That’s what I do when I make chicken, spinach and feta brats. Thighs have enough fat (when you also include the skins), that additional fat is not needed.

Sorry, I can’t help you on the water question for the super bind. I’m sure Jonathon will be along shortly to give you feedback on that.

marctrejo for the crumbly part, sounds like your binder might not have gotten get mixed well with the meat. Did you use a meat mixer or mix it by hand? What size of batch? As for the real wet, how much water did you add?

hinoon I prefer a more mild smoke flavor, so like Jonathan mentioned, apple wood is a really great choice. If you are doing natural casings (or not smoked colagen casings), you can add a little cherry wood which will give the meat a nice mahogany color.

vjbutler My first thought is you still have a little fat that is not being trimmed off the meat before seasoning and dehydrating. I’m guessing that is actually a mold that is forming causing the “white stuff”.

Joe Hell Hi Joe, I’ve seen a few of your posts, so you must have been on here awhile.

Jonathon I forgot I had this video that sort of shows my smoker in action. This was from 2008 at the Bixby BBQ and Blues Competition – this was our very first competition.

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