Just finished processing 3 deer, much of which is now sausage (as will more become later on in the year). I mixed up 25 lbs of cured & smoked Polish along with 25 lbs of summer sausage. I used high temp cheddar in half of the summer. A bit of the summer “extras” got stuffed into 19mm sticks casings. It all came out amazing.

I’ve gotta give a big “thank you” to the Meatgistics community as well as Austin & Jon for all of the excellent information. Last year’s summer sausage was easily the worst I’ve ever made: crumbly, water-logged, wrinkly… I did everything wrong. After spending hours pouring over posts and videos here, I produced my best-ever sausages. It’s only been a couple days and a lot of it has disappeared already!

Pounded out some pork loin nice and thin, dredged it in seasoned flour then panko, and fried it up. Even the picky kids couldn’t say no!

Double smoked ham for dinner, yum.

Oh, and I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast using my Grandma’s old recipe.

Venison kielbasa (using Walton’s ingredients of course), homemade pierogis, and pickled beets. Yum.

Got the wife a simple “dumpling press” as one of her Christmas gifts. Beats the heck out of pressing pierogis with a fork!

Yup, that blow back is why I decided to retire mine this year. I tried buying one of the plastic “gasket” discs from eBay but it didn’t really help. And it’s a bit tiring cleaning and oiling that heavy beast. Super cool though. Mine still has the original stuffing tube, fruit straining basket, and still has some original paint/trim.

So look what just showed up today! New Walton’s #22. I knew it would be big, but I swear, this thing could probably grind up my old grinder. Will hopefully be running some venison snack sticks this weekend.

3T please and thank you!

This little guy would love it!

I also have another boy wearing 6T, but that 5/6T might be a bit small.

gChart checking in… I’ve been shopping at Walton’s for several years now, but finally decided to stop by and say Hi.

I’m from central Illinois (a small farming town not too far from Peoria, IL). Life long hunter, mostly deer; so that’s where most of my meat comes from for processing. We usually make 50-100 lbs of sausage each year, but that’s been increasing as my family grows. The plan for this season is 25 lbs summer sausage, 25 lbs kielbasa, 25 lbs brats, 12 lbs linked breakfast sausage, and perhaps some snack sticks.

As far as equipment goes… fairly simplistic. I process my own deer. Ground goes through our Weston #8 grinder. Mixing by hand or KitchenAid (hoping for a proper mixer in the next couple of years). I’ve been using our old Enterprise #35 stuffer. It’s neat to use something that old, but it’s frustrating too - I swear half the meat escapes from blowback. So I just purchased a small, modern stainless stuffer and the Enterprise will get relegated to ornamental duties. For the past 10 years or so, smoking has been done in an el-cheapo electric cabinet-style smoker with a low-med-high dial. That finally kicked the bucket and I’m now using my Pit Boss 820 for smoking (still not perfect, but much better than my old one).

In preparation for the upcoming season (still working on my skills, even after these years), I made a test batch of kielbasa over the weekend: 50% venison, 50% fatty pork shoulder, stuffed into 30mm fresh casings, cured, and smoked!. It came out better than ever before, thanks to the many great how-to articles and videos here on Meatgistics!

Jonathon said in What did everyone cook today?:

gChart I keep seeing your avatar and think you are Austin When I click on your profile you don’t look that much like him but from the little profile image you two look like twins!

Haha. There are times in recent videos with him that I swear I’m looking in a mirror. Maybe not twin material but could probably pass as brothers.

I like the idea of the notifications Jonathon. We’ll get there! FWIW, here’s how the notification came across for me (both times). There didn’t seem to be a way to expand the notification or otherwise see the full text of it.

Austin - app help, please!

Yup, same here. I can see part of the message, and when I click on it, it just takes me into the app. I don’t see a way to view the rest of the notification. Or any way to see notification info in the app. Thankfully I was able to track part of it down through Android’s notification history. But I’m still not 100% sure what the code is good for. ??? I’ve noticed this with the couple other times I’ve gotten push notifications from the Meatgistics app.

Pounded out some pork loin nice and thin, dredged it in seasoned flour then panko, and fried it up. Even the picky kids couldn’t say no!

Yup, that blow back is why I decided to retire mine this year. I tried buying one of the plastic “gasket” discs from eBay but it didn’t really help. And it’s a bit tiring cleaning and oiling that heavy beast. Super cool though. Mine still has the original stuffing tube, fruit straining basket, and still has some original paint/trim.

Jonathon thanks for the info! I’ll play around with starting at a lower heat. I may just head back to natural for the next batch, we’ll see.

Yes, thank you Austin !

Yeah, nice Enterprise! (I’ve got one too). Salami looks great.

Tex_77 haha. I actually used his TBM coupon that gave a few Walton’s goodies (including the sticker) to the first so many people to redeem it.

Update… As much as it goes against my sense of what is “right”, I baked my sausage links this morning at 350° for around 12 minutes. Wasn’t the same as pan frying but shockingly, the casings held up just fine and made a pretty decent end product. Would still be nice to figure out if there’s a way to pan fry with the collagen though.

Ohh a beanie sounds nice… gotta keep this bald/shaved head warm somehow!

Tex_77 there’s already a sticker, got one with my TBM order. Pretty nice.