Walton's Employee

@andyman Great question, Carrot Fiber holds up to 26 times its weight in water, and while the 80 oz is still well inside that I have never done that before. I max out (even with Carrot Fiber) at 64 oz which is 2 qts. My only fear with doing 80 is that it might take a lot longer to cook as it will have more water content that will be trying to evaporate. Most of that water should be bound up in the carrot fiber though so it wouldn’t really be available to be cooked out. Hmmm, my recommendation, to be safe is to stick with 64 oz of water.

Now, as to should you add more seasoning, some people will taste the difference if you did not add additional seasonings and some (most) will not. Your water and your seasoning is technically part of your meat block (anyone who is reading this who doesn’t consider this don’t worry!) so adjusting your meat block to include your water is sometimes done. If you do decide to add more spices or seasonings I would add aromatics and things like Rosemary and Basil, don’t add more salt as that is formulated specifically for the meat block.

Hope this helps and if you do decide to go with 80 oz of water then I would be very interested in the results!

@twigg267 I did a meatgistics university article on this topic, you can view it Jerky 103 - Best Cuts For Jerky and read the article! Let me know if you have more questions beyond what is available there!

@Joe-Hell Twelve hours is what we recommend to allow the cure to work in the meat but it can be held longer than that to a point. 24 hours shouldn’t cause any concerns, it might not be ideal but that 12-hour difference isn’t going to give you any changes in color, taste or safety, so you are good to go!

What can happen, if it is held too long in certain situations is that the Nitrite might convert to nitric oxide and begin to lose its effectiveness. It’s not common but it can happen!

@weatherbow21 I’d go a little higher than 15%, closer to 20-25% for taste and consistency. If you can find it, pork fat works better than beef fat as it has a creaminess to it that other animal fats can’t quite match. Now, having said that, beef fat will absolutely work too!

Yes you are correct in how you are planning on just switching out casings. The only thing I want to point out is that after you have stuffed them into the casings they need to be held in a refrigerator overnight unless you are using a Cure Accelerator such as Encapsulated Citric Acid, Sodium Erythorbate or Excalibur’s Cure Excellerator.

@clubchuck Awesome! Glad it all came out well if you take any pictures of them please take so we can all see them!

@tom-0 you should be fine. I don’t think there will be any issue on an extended soak time for fibrous casings.

@randynight I grew up in New York State so we didn’t run into Gator meat a lot, so excuse my ignorance on this topic but other than the tail what is commonly eaten from a gator? Is it pretty much all the meat? I’d imagine that the thighs have some good meat on them, no?

@TinCupTom I can’t confirm that it works with a Cabelas brand stuffer but what I can do is give you the OD of the back side of the flange of our stuffing tubes which is 2 - 1/16th of an inch, they are all the same for all Walton’s sizes of stuffing tubes. So if you measure the flange on one of your stuffing tubes and it is the same then you “should” be able to use it. I’m not sure what the tolerance for variability would be here but I would have to imagine there is some allowance for error, so I’d guess if you were 2 inches heavy (less than a 1/6th of an inch) that it would work!

Yes, the diameter it mentioned was the OD. I’m not sure about the plastic piece but the ID of our 10mm stuffing tube is 5/16th of an inch, if that helps?

Now, if you are wanting to make 19mm (that’s the size I recommend by the way!) then you don’t need to use a 10mm stuffing tube, a 12mm should work fine for 19mm. Unless maybe yours came with a 10mm and the next size up is 20 or something? If that is the case then a 10mm will still work just make sure you are holding the casing onto the tube so it actually fills all the way up!

@mtnjim Like @Joe-Hell says it depends on its application. Joe, you meant grinding the fat once for a cured and twice for a fresh right? Funny that we would both think that on the fat but when it comes to the meat for a cured product you want it ground more!

@christian-beckman POkay, well then as long as you are planning on using the type of smoke (cook) schedule we recommend then there is no reason that the Encapuslated Citric Acid (ECA) wouldn’t work perfectly for your needs! Pepperoni Sticks are great and I love it when they have lots of tang! When I made pepperoni here this year my one regret was putting ANY smoke on them, they were better just with the seasoning and the ECA!