Most bars and restaurants do NOT Grill their burgers, they cook them on a Flat Top at relatively high heat.

They make a ball of beef, not a patty, they place the raw ball of beef directly on the Flat Top and smash it down to their desired thickness, add salt and pepper and leave it sit until the bottom is nice and crispy, it’s called, THE MAILLARD REACTION.

As soon as they have created that crust, the burger is flipped and the cheese is applied if desired. The burger is left to continue cooking to desired doneness.

Flat Tops are becoming very popular , Blackstone, PitBoss, Camp Chef , etc all make them for home use. If you don’t have a flat top you can accomplish the same by cooking your “smash burger” in a heavy cast iron pan.

ECA should be added just before stuffing AND smoking/cooking.

If you add it the day before you will have a soft, mushy texture.

It’s up to you however, if you like mushy then add it the day before.

Don’t freeze them.

That’s about 23% fat, not enough for breakfast and that is if you added pure pork fat, if there was lean meat on the pork trim it becomes even leaner

Apparently nobody here has and answer, pitty

Dr_Pain

Both product archive there desired results by altering the PH.

Phosphate raises PH, ECA lowers PH, using them at the same time accomplishes what as far as PH is concerned

Walton’s recommends their Special Meat Binder a blend of milk product and Sodium Phosphate in their sticks and other cured meats as in Summer Sausage.

Walton’s also recommends Encapsulated Citric Acid for a desired tang. in the same products.

Both of these are used at the same time.

The Phosphate achieves it moisture retention properties by “Raising” the PH.

The Critic Acid achieves its tang and other properties by by “lowing” the PH.

How can these two, one raising and one lowering PH be used at the same time?

Smoked sausage should never exceed 165* internal temp.

You cooked/smoked to fast and to hot. You leached out all the fat, water and goodness.

Midwest_kc said in How bad did I mess up?:

Moisture retention. I thought a lot of people used it in fresh sausages. Maybe not, but I’ve liked my previous results with it.

Binder is not needed in fresh sausage.

I got this last night.

It is the first Email correspondence I received on the subject.

Steve,
I apologize for the delayed reply as I’ve been working with the customer you referenced below from Walton’s website and his name is also Steve….in my mind, I had blended you both together. While we’ve got the other Steve taken care of I again apologize as I realize your inquiry has been idle.

We have not ever heard of this happening and we’ve had the PK in existence for almost 40 years with literally thousands of them in the field. There have been 3 instances where the smoker sides buckled when pellets were used…twice by consumers and once by our testing, but never before with sawdust. Pellets or wood chunks can absorb a great amount of heat and if ember is not created, you can get pressure to build up and once the temp gets high enough, along with the wrong mix of air flow, you get that massive ignition/combustion and pressure release. That’s why we over-mention the use of only sawdust for smoke within the first 4 pages of the manual.

We are having that unit brought back to our facility but there will be limited testing we can do on it. The customer is adamant that he only had sawdust in the smoke pan, so we can only assume that he got very high heat on the element without an ember starting and once temps got to that high enough point, airflow caused that ignition and release of pressure. But he also mentioned that this occurred in under 2 minutes and it would be very difficult to get that type of pressure to build up that quickly. We may never fully know the root cause of this. For my personal use, I do “slightly” moisten the sawdust when I’m smoking. It gives me just a slight amount of humidity in the chamber which is great for smoke distribution to the product when smoking. That being said, there are plenty out there who do not moisten the sawdust.

I also use my index finger and create a dimple in the center of the sawdust….the center of the pan is the hottest in smoke setting (625 low watt setting) and that allows oxygen to the wood…wood to the heat…to give me quickest/most thorough smoke. I hope that made sense, but if you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. I’d be happy to help where I can.

Thanks for reaching out to us and I hope your move forward with your Pro Smoker plan……you will absolutely love it.

Jeff Warren
Account Executive
Pro Smoker ‘N Roaster / Vortron
Phone: (920)-387-5255 Ext. 147
Cell: (262)388-3839

You have not been replying to my email account.

Jonathon said in Pk 100 blew up:

steve4102 You sent them an email to the info@pro-smoker.com address above and they didn’t respond to that? You could tag the group again if you want them to see it here, they seem to have created an account for this topic.

Yes, and no they did not respond.

Got a link to this “account” they created?

I too sent them an email.
No reply.
Very disappointing

Does it say anything out the Dangers of using dry, or just about flavor

What does the manufacturer, Pro-Smoker, say about Dry vs Damp saw dust?