Walton's Employee

@Joe-Hell Do you often cook on planks? I have tried it a time or two and never noticed a difference. Is it only supposed to be used for heat shielding?

@Ed_Orum The most popular starter culture that we carry for pepperoni would be the Bactoferm LHP but that requires warmer temperatures than 60° as its optimum growth is from 90-110°. Doing this in your basement will be a “proceed at your own risk” situation as we can only recommend doing these under controlled environments like a dry curing chamber.

There is some good information on that page, so even if you dont use the LHP I would recommend checking it out.

Anyone have any tips for Ed?

@Jonathon @dbueling
For the Reuben Brat, I would use approximately two 15 oz cans of sauerkraut for a 25 lb batch.
If you wanted to make a sauerkraut brat with that as the main flavor profile, you could use up to 5 lb of sauerkraut.
For caraway, I’m seeing anywhere from 20 grams to 100 grams in a 100 lb batch of sausage, but nothing specific for a reuben or sauerkraut brat.

@North biggest difference between H Summer and Ton’s is that H summer has whole mustard seeds where Ton’s has ground mustard seeds. Either would be great but I’d probably go with H Summer, it is a best seller and with good reason!

For Breakfast links adding pure maple syrup is a better idea, I don’t have good luck with adding bacon,m gets mooshie (sp?) whenever I try to use it.

Regular hot dog seasoning (or closest we have) that gets great reviews Hot dog & Bologna then there is the Reduced Salt Frank & Weiner or the Chili dog is really good to but out of those I think the Hot Dog & Bologna will be the closest to what you are looking for.

For summer you can absolutely use the H or the Ton’s as a base, people do it all the time with good results. The gigawatt will give you a nice amount of heat but it shouldn’t be burn your mouth hot. I like to add ghost pepper hi-temp cheese to it so people sweat when they eat too much, it keeps people from treating them as “samples”!

For the salt the breakfast with probably the least salty taste would be the maple, so you are good there. I might stay clear of the Italians as I seem to remember them being salty but I love salt so it is hard to say for sure. For hotdogs, they are all going to have about the same saltiness aside the reduced salt frank and Weiner (linked above).

On your last bit, you said “mix spices with seasoning” did you mean with the meat? If so never mix the seasoning and cures in and then hold before stuffing, if you are using sure cure (or any cure really) then mix, stuff and then hold if necessary. If you wait then everything might start to “set” and you could break your stuffer, not to mention it will be much much harder to crank. If you aren’t using cure then just stuff, if you are using sure cure (and no accelerator) the stuff and hold in a fridge overnight to allow the cure time to work!

Good luck!

@craigrice out of pork beef turkey and venison the imitation bacon I made out of beef was by far and away my favorite. That might or might not be true in the video we made but since then and from the left overs of that it was 100% my favorite

@dbueling really is a matter of taste, last time I did 14 oz can to a 25 lb batch and that wasn’t enough for me. Maybe try 20 oz to 10 lb?

@Austin do you have any thoughts on this?

@sakepower ive tried the powder ranch and was disappointed, didn’t know about the powdered franks, will try that. I’m a huge fan of franks particularly on eggs

@Dave-R as @craigrice said that’s some good trussing, @Joe-Hell also has some really nice examples of trussing st home…I might make a post about that on social media this week, you guys deserve the recognition!

Rueben can be done either way, I personally prefer them fresh butter include the sure cure to give you the option! Good luck, Rueben is one of my favorites especially with some kraut!!!

And to answer @craigrice initial
Question I had a vegan Mac n cheese sauce ( my wife makes its incredible) over chicken with a garlic and seed loaf of bread last night. Then tonight it was fake crab meat, which I freaking love! Just a dollop if butter in a hot pan then some captains bay seasoning, great with rice or without it and I have a nice ribeye planned for tomorrow!