I worked for 3 years in Walton's Customer Service department, I have probably spoken with a good deal of people visiting this page in one way or another! I am now working on content creation for waltonsinc.com and meatgistics.com.
Im originally from upstate New York and before I worked here I had never made homemade Sausage before. Now I love processing and the satisfaction that comes from eating a well made homemade Snack Stick, Summer Sausage, Bratwurst, etc.
I try to eat healthy and we will do some posts about healthy options here but I am not a fanatic about it, what is the use of eating healthy if you can't occasionally eat 1 or 2 Brats, okay fine 4 or 5!!?
Dylan and I did 75 lb of sausage today. 1 batch of the Salami with some dry red wine added, one of the Pepperoni and 1 of Habanero BBQ, each one was 25 lb. On all of them, we used the Bactoferm TSP-X Starter Culture. We stuffed them into Beef Middles and put them into our eller cabinet. We are going to check tomorrow to make sure we have achieved the needed pH drop and then we buckle in for the long wait!
Hey everyone, I thought I would put together a little post that would sort of encapsulate (citric acid) 2019 for Meatgistics users! It is going to be a collection of some of my favorite posts, I went through and tried to rank them on how many views, comments and votes they got but that quickly got too confusing! So, I looked at those and took them into consideration but they are by no means all I took into account!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to meatgistics this year! Your questions, responses and ultimately your purchasing of Walton’s Inc products is what lets us keep doing what we are doing! So, the countdown begins.
There are going to be more than a few people who made posts worthy of being on this list that I am leaving out (off the top of my head I can think of AdamCA craigrice raider2119 macsinsac lamurscrappy blackbetty61 and Darkfish89, though I am sure I am forgetting more than a few), and I don’t want anyone to feel offended, I am sure I missed things (I am trying to do this in between getting caught up from yesterdays livestream) so, if I missed one that you think should be on here let me know and link the post you think should be on here!
I didnt say I was going to start at 10! hotkarl s post about smoking on the job (smoking sausage) let us all see his awesome set up and even gave a new idea or two on how to finish up your product in water.
PapaSop Posted about Frozen Pizza at 4:10 and by 4:19 Austin had responded, lesson is, if you want a fast response from Austin mention frozen pizza, specifically Totinos brand!
Though it took a few tries, we were finally able to see Dave R gorgeuos ribeyes! Joe Hell and a few others chimed in with there amazing pictures of meat as well!
twilliams got the bow season off to a great start and made everyone start thinking of what they were going to do with their deer this season!
Parksider asked Austin for a map of all meatgistics members, I thought it would one of those things that we tried to figure out for months, but at the end of the day Austin had it figured out and live! For anyone who hasn’t done it yet, go to your profile and re-save your information and that will get you on the map!
JohninPa Wanted everyones opinions and ideas on what he was planning on doing that weekend and wow did he get them! We had a lot of people chime in with ideas and suggestions for him. This post is LOADED with good information for people.
This post was what was behind trying Glycerine instead of extra sugar to make tender beef jerky. And though we haven’t heard much from smcneese recently, this was a good idea!
Joe Hell s thorough breakdown of reverse sear vs sous vide covers almost every detail you can think of between the two ways of doing it!
Yes, yes, I know, technically this wasn’t this year but this is the post that introduced us to Parksider s idea of finishing up your product in water. I’d say more than any other single idea or technique, this changed the way more people do their sausage than anything else!
With 228 Posts and almost 3,000 views Tex_77 post continues to be a “must read first thing Monday morning” for myself, and many many others! It is a great place to showcase what you grilled, smoked, bbq’d or cooked this weekend and to see what creations other people have come up with!
A part of the amazing story that is Joe Hell s weight loss journey, for anyone who hasn’t checked it, and his blog, Better Living Through BBQ With Joe Hell you need to do that right away! Not only will you see some amazing pics of insane meals but you can follow along with his life-changing weight loss journey!
The long wait is over! Actually only partially, we are going to leave them in for a few more days but for the most part they are done! Pepperoni was my favorite, followed by the Salami with wine and then the Habanero BBQ which is growing on me! Then the sticks in the background are Hatch Green Chili Brat that we used 10% more seasoning on to make it work as a snack stick. We did 3 different techniques on those and will have a video on it soon!
It has been a while since we have done anything in this section and one of the things I liked was giving everyone the stats on how the community is growing and how much Meatgistics has been used. First, that is all from you guys! People aren’t coming here and staying here for me and Austin they might come to find some information but it is you guys who are keeping everyone engaged. The decision to have a community section of meatgistics was the smartest thing we have done!
Stats for the last 7 days:
New Posts 247
New Topics 17
New Users 55
New visitors 3,604 (lots of people just visiting or lurking, they’ll eventually get around to signing up!)
Page Views 121,854
All-time Stats:
Posts 19,700
Topics 2,200
Users 9,900 (we’d be well over 10,000 but I keep deleting any questionable accounts due to spam!)
Austin and here is the most important pic taken during the entire weekend! PapaSop Thanks for stopping by, sorry you met @Team-Blue and not Austin!
Each week, Jon and Austin break out and critique a new beer and different sausage while they discuss everything about meat. Follow along as they talk about their favorite recipes and share some of the best expert tips and tricks for making sausage and jerky. Stay up to date on the latest news and current trends in the meat industry as Jon and Austin explore everything related to meat and more.
Jon is drinking Devil’s Advocate from Church Street Brewing
Austin is drinking Delerium Red from Huyghe Brewery
Jon used BBQ Jerky seasoning to make snack sticks and confuse Austin. While he was correct that there was some BBQ in it, he did NOT guess correctly.
-We talked about Calving Season
-Feedlot Inventories are a point of concern right now
-Meat Supply Inventories are hopefully on the mend by the time this is released!
We talked about the Precision Scale and how it can be used to help you make better sausage, especially when making smaller batches. Take the weight of the seasoning and divide it by the intended batch size, then multiply that by the # of pounds you are doing and then multiply that by 16 to get oz instead of pounds. That # is the ounces you need for the batch you are making.
This is the last one we had recorded before we released episode 1 so we will have a customer question answered in the next one!
Randyman Our 11 lb sausage stuffer just went on sale today, this is the stuffer I use all the time in our videos/experiments. The piston is smaller which makes turning the crank and stuffing a lot easier than on the larger models. https://www.waltonsinc.com/sales
We are testing out creating new groups based upon what smoker you own. Right now I have 1 for the Pk-100 and 1 for Masterbuilt. If people want I can split masterbuilt into a few different categories (but I don’t want to go totally nuts here) as I know they make a bunch, but to start this will make things easier. So, now if you have a question on a Masterbuilt or PK100 you can simply @Masterbuilt or @PK100 and it will notify everyone in that group!
So, to be useful people would have to go and join those groups. Let me know if you guys like this idea and what other groups for smokers or other pieces of equipment you want. Right now I have the badges showing but we can hide that if it starts to get too many badges next to our names.
Feel free to tell Brian how much you liked this!
https://www.facebook.com/149691662246992/posts/1086054921737010?comment_id=602953050254182
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Mulberrylane First of all, we’ll pray everything goes well with your son, that has got to be incredibly hard, glad you have what sounds like a tight family to help!
Second, we could come up with sausages and recipes without any preservatives but salt is the tough one. Salt plays such a key roll in sausage and even jerky that I don’t think that there is a way to eliminate it completely. Is there a % per serving that is acceptable or does it truly need to be salt-free?
Do the boys like heat? It seems like to me that the easiest way to work around low sodium but still provide taste would be to add some heat. What about sugar? Is that okay and if you want that restricted please let me know how many grams per serving of sugar is acceptable.
I’ll run this by our application specialist and Austin and I will have a talk to see what we can come up with!
Stay strong and god bless!
calldoctoday and Chef Funny story with Blue Bell, when I lived down in Dallas they had (probably still have) a sports station called the ticket (yup, they do https://www.theticket.com/) and they used to do these ridiculously funny skits. My brother and I would be crying on the drive in and out of work. Well they did one that was a parody of the Blue Bell commercials and it was unreal. Years later I was talking to Corby Davidson and he said they had to get rid of ALL copies of that because they got in so much trouble over it!
Sorry, totally off topic but I can’t think of Blue Bell without laughing about that story.
In case anyone wants to support a good cause by trying to bid on some amazingly cool items/experiences or just wants to look at what’s available and dream check out this https://www.onlinehuntingauctions.com/NWTF-Live-Summer-Grand-National-Call-for-All-Auction_as66395 auction going on right now from NWTF. They were nice enough to come on the podcast last week and I have to say, it was a great episode and a great time. We talked about turkey, why it’s important to get young kids out hunting and we got a few AWESOME bear stories from Alaska! This episode will be live on Monday August 10th. We feel like we’ve started to hit a stride and it turns out its more interesting with less Austin ! No, just kidding but he was not on this most episode, don’t worry, he will be back!
tim cahill Be careful when you are grinding mixing and then holding before stuffing. The meat can start to “set up” and that can damage your stuffer when trying to stuff. Now, with a larger diameter sausage like a Bratwurst it is probably less of an issue but it still might hurt your stuffer.
calldoctoday I can’t even think about spatchcoking without thinking of Roger, the alien from American Dad anymore. It’s a ridiculous episode on a ridiculous animated TV show but it did make me laugh!
calldoctoday I can’t even think about spatchcoking without thinking of Roger, the alien from American Dad anymore. It’s a ridiculous episode on a ridiculous animated TV show but it did make me laugh!
deweymeats Philly brat is meant to be a fresh product not a cured sausage. This matters because the salt content of Philly is designed for a fresh and not cured brat, salt helps solubilize the proteins in the meat, without it you are always going to struggle, your fat will render out and that can give you a dry finished product and since the casing has been dealing with more fat it can cause issues there too. Also, if you are smoking, you don’t want to use 30mm fresh collagen, use the clear as that is designed to be smoked, the fresh is designed to be grilled or cooked in the oven.
What are you doing when they come out of the smoker? Are they given an ice bath, do you leave them out for a few hours at room temp and then store overnight in a cooler?
I also don’t like Carrot Fiber as much for Cured Sausage as I do for Fresh Sausage. The Sure Gel is a better option for cured products. I don’t think this had anything to do with casing toughness but it is worth trying.
So if you are still wanting to use the Philly for a smoked brat I would use about 10% less meat to get the salt content closer to a cured brat, use collagen casings that are designed for smoking (clear probably sounds like what you’d want) and use sure gel. Hope it helps!
Tex_77 I think the tumble would ruin any but the hardiest or lightest (leafy) of vegetables. I’d think vacuum sealing them, or the 5 minute marinator that calldoctoday is talking about is your best option.
The express does have settings for broccoli and another for leafy greens so that tracks with my thinking above but something like a pepper or tomato is going to get slaughtered…that might actually be a really really fun experiment!
dudeweembo To say we are excited for these grinders is a vast understatement! First, having any 22 or 32 grinders will be great but with these changes we really think we’re going to be selling a great product!
tim cahill I dont think that would work the way you are hoping. With Snack Sticks I think they almost always taste better a day or two later, same thing with other cured sausage that you would eat cold. The reason is I think the flavor is developing in soups and chilis more while it sits more water is going to be removed, so you have more intense flavors since the water amount is slightly less. With Brats I don’t think that will work but sure, it is something we can absolutely check out and I’ll report back.
I added a 18 oz pepperoni to a 12 lb batch so I would say a 10-1 ratio of brats to pepperoni should be right on!
IndianaJohn Yeah patrick (video editor: many other functions) noticed this yesterday and fixed it!