Regular Contributors

JerkyIsMySalad
As far as a water bath. A roaster, turkey cooker and a meat lug are options. If you can’t do all at once just split it up. Does not take long to get them to temp.

This is a 10# batch I did with lug and Sous Vide circulator.

I have traditionally used a milk based binder and have never had a problem with fat out unless I got the smoker temp too hot, over 170 degrees for snack sticks. I firmly believe in 160 degree hot water bath to finish snack sticks, bring 140-150 in smoker than finish in hot water bath

I like the smoked cajun sausage blend. If you make it the day before then by the time you fire up your smoker they’ll be ready. There is a good amount of heat in this blend but it also has good flavor as well.

@kanevak When mixing by hand you need to be mixing for about 25-30 minutes in order to get the proper amount of Protein extraction. It sucks, your hands are going to be very cold and cramp up a lot. I have the 20 lb meat mixer and it works perfect for me. I rarely make a 25 lb batch of anything and if I do it is usually a Fresh product and I just mix by hand enough to get the seasoning mixed in well.

TexLaw Here are a couple of Walton’s hot link seasonings:

https://www.waltonsinc.com/hot-link-unit

https://www.waltonsinc.com/fast-pak-hot-link-2

@kanevak Yes, on a cured product it can be mixed with the meat and the water added as you go. For a fresh product it is better to add the binder to water (if you are using one, you don’t really need to on a fresh product) because we aren’t wanting to overmix the meat.

Cabelas90 see what happens when you get all noble? I’ll see if there is some way for us to facilitate this but I don’t think there is. @kanevak if you are just looking for he much of seasoning to use per lb of meat we have the Seasoning, Additives and Cures broken out by 1 and 5 lb batches at the bottom of this page
https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/category/23/seasonings

Cabelas90 and lamurscrappy Do either of you count the seasoning and water in the meatblock for wild game or anything else?

@kanevak Some commercial processors (don’t hold me to this but I think it is most prevalent when doing wild game) will count the seasoning and additives to their meat block but in general we do not. So if you are doing a 10 lb batch you would want 8lb of lean and 2 lb of pork fat (or any really but pork is best in our opinion). Now, if you make a brat or snack stick andlike the flavor but wish it was strong calculating the seasoning and water into your meat block is a good way to up that taste. I say that with some caveats though, the Habanero BBQ is a BIG bag of seasoning that is at least half sugar, somewhere in the 3 lb range and you wouldn’t want to use 20 lb of meat 3 lb of seasoning and 2 lb of water, or whatever other additives as there is a good chance the snack stick or summer sausage could be overly sweet. So, if you are going to factor the seasoning and water weight into your meat block do smaller batches first until you have found what you think the sweet spot is.

Yup, I find that grinding pork fat once, especially if it is through the smaller plate is sufficient. With a cured sausage you are going to mix it pretty intensely and that will break it down further and for brats and things like that you want some particle definition anyway.

mike6176 Another thing you can do is have a bowl of warm water next to the stuffer and occasionally just grab some water and sort of sprinkle it on the casings with your hand, that’ll help.

Now that is a dang curing chamber! Beats the hell out of my homeade one! Good luck Jonathon