@jonathon I did i t. We smoked the whole boneless ribeye and it was awesome. We seasoned with a bit of everything. Wrapped in foil Saturday all day until Sunday around noon. We put the ribeye in the smoker, with water in the water pan. We kept the fire as close to 225-250 as we could. We used hickory and some pecan wood. We let the internal temp get to 127 and removed the meat from the smoker. We wrapped in foil and placed in a small ice chess for about 2 and a half hours. We removed unrapped and sliced. We had a nice bark and the flavor was great. THe meat was juicy and had picked up just the right amount of smoke. This is a do-over. (ALL WAS GREAT FOR THE GAME) GEAUX TIGERS!!!

I used the dry rub to start curing bacon. It was all covered with the rub. I checked it last night. I have 2 pieces. I have the fat side down on the bottom one and the fat side up on the top one. The 2 meat sides are still covered with the rub but it seems as though the fat caps aren’t covered with the rub. I know I started out with both sides of both pieces of pork belly covered. Can I put some more cure on the fat sides or is this normal? ALso, I have some of the poly meat pans. Can smoked chickens or other done foods be placed in these pans or not?

So I can vacuum seal the belly with the vac sealer and after the 5 to 7 days remove it and smoke it?

I purchased some of the smaller meat lugs and some lug liners. Are the lugs and liners safe to make bacon in? I am trying the dry rub bacon and don’t want to get sick or ruin pork belly. Also when the bacon makes liquid in the lug do you pour that out each time you flip the pork belly over?

I’ve smoked a whole ribeye before but don’t remember what I did. I want to get the meat up to 135 degrees f. and then wrap in aluminum foil. After that I want to place it into an ice chess for a few hours then slice thin and make sandwiches. This is going to be done on SUnday for the LSU football game. Problem is, I am not sure where to start the smoking temperature or what kind of wood to use. I’m thinking hickory so that the flavor will get into the ribeye. Not sure if I need to put water in the water pan for this or not. I viewed videos that put the smoker at 275 to start with but I’m worried that the meat will dry out at that temp. ANy ideas, thoughts, suggestions?

@jonathon Thanks for trying Jonathon. Many wouln’t even do that. I’ll just write down the possible settings and write the last one that I used so that the next time I use it I’ll know where it was set. Some times there are no little tricks that make these things easy but you tried. Some devices can be set to defaults and some do this when they are unplugged and plugged in again. Another thing is the bags are cheap enough, I can make a few to see what is happening and adjust the unit accordinly. Didn’t get this far in life by giving up always some way to get it done. I’m planning on trying the hot dogs this weekend. I am going to use the collagen casing and I’ll post on how it goes. Thanks again.

Ok so the vacmaster vp112s is arriving tomorrow. I can’t wait. I have a few questions about its operation. I am aware that you can change the seal time and the vac time. Once these are changed are they stored in a memory even if the machine is unplugged? Since I can’t see I need to know if there is a way to get the times and vac strength back to say factory defaults so that I know where I am. Is this possible or will I just need to remember what they are set on from the last time I used the unit? ALso, what is the size bag for the chamber sealewrs closest to a pint, quart, and gallon?

I did it. I purchased the vacmaster vp112s. I went with the 112 because I don’t care for the auto lid on the 120. Motor sounds strained. One less mechanical thing to go wrong. The braille on the vac bags held up and I look forward to know what my frozen bags contain for the first time in my life. As usual the people at walton’s were extremely helpfull. Austin sent me sample bags to try and I have also been working with Jonathon to get my hot dogs right among other things. I found the 112s cheaper but the people didn’t want to assist at all. The amount of money wasn’t that much and these days customer service is lacking in a lot of places…I am totally happy but can’t wait until the sealer arrives tomorrow. Thanks walton’s for all you do. Another issue is that I am totally blind but not one of the Walton’s staff said wait you can’t do that you can’t see. I assist my brother with meat processing and even go on the hunt for deer. I also buy in bulk and freeze. I grind my own meat with a weston #32 grinder, mix with the weston meat mixer, and stuff with a waltons 7 pound stuffer. I smoke with a smoke hollow 44 propane smoker and a master built 30 inch electric smoker. I really hope that one day I can afford the smokers that Waltons sells. I think it is the pk100. Now I can’t wait to store things using the vacmaster vp112s.

@austin Austin, I received the bags. Great news, I wrote using braille on 3 or 4 bags and put them in the freezer. I checked a few times last night and the braille was still there. I also placed a label on 1 bag using dymo tape. It seemed to stick well. I plan on leaving the bags in the freezer all weekend to see what happens. If I still have label with or braille or braille on the bag after the weekend I’ll purchase the vp112s. My thinking is that I don’t need the automatic lid. Just one more thing to go wrong.

@gerygaub That would be gret Austin. I was terribly disappointed in the other company I was dealing with concerning the vacuum sealer. The address you have on file would totally work and that is awesome that you would send a few for me to check out whether or not it will work. Like your site says, family business. You guys are totally awesome to work with. I anxiously await the bags. Thanks!!