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!
Guys, just pointing out that I am deleting the @davidwang account. I don’t want to get into other companies using Meatgistics as a way to sell their products to our customers. Sales between you guys of used equipment is 100% fine though!
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!
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 solo today but still drinking! Today he has Bid Idjit from Dugges Brewery and this was a serious beer! To quote an old Monty Python skit this is an excellent hand to hand beer! Filled with lots of flavor it is also extremely high in alcohol!
#1 Add humidity by adding an oversized pan and sponge or dry wick material.
- What we are trying to do here is avoid “the stall” which is when the evaporation energy matches the thermal processing energy
- Adding relative humidity makes it harder for evaporation energy to slow down the cook
- We are making it easier for the water to evaporate as we are increasing the surface area.
- During a short 4 hour period we were able to empty a very large oversized water bowl in our PK 100 Smoker with a dry wick towel.
#2 Use a binder and a meat mixer
- Protein extraction is the key to making good sausage. It prevents the fat from rendering out of the meat during the long smoking process.
- Binders help everything stick together
- Prevents fat out
- Much easier to get protein extraction with a mixer than hand though it can be done by hand as well
- All binders act differently but have similar aims. Carrot Fiber is best used for fresh sausages like bratwurst.
#2A Know your additives
-Seasoning (salt content)
-Sure Cure (botulism spores)
-Sure Gel / Super Bind / Soy Protein Blend
-Encapsulated Citric Acid
-Sodium Phosphate (maybe)
-Sodium Erythorbate (accelerator without the tang)
-Smoked meat Stabilizer
-Cheese
-Water
#3 Pull at 130 and finish sous vide
- Parksider is a well established Meatgistics member and has shared plenty of great tips and information on here, but this is the one that probably has helped more people than any other user tip.
- As I talked about on the podcast vacuum packing is really only necessary if you are using a Sous Vide Circulator that pulls water in and circulates it back out. In that case you run the risk of clogging a filter with fats, oils or even small pieces of casings. Surprisingly, finishing it up without a vacuum bag does not cook any smoke flavor or any flavor out of the meat.
#4 Fat content or raise pH
- For most sausage you want to be between 20-30% fat content, we always prefer pork fat as it is creamy, very light in color and has very little taste.
- Cold Phosphate raises the pH of the meat which lets it bind more effectively to the water, helping more of it stay in the meat during the cooking process.
- Fat effects the flavor by melting in your mouth and coating it, letting you experience the flavor more intensely and longer.
- Too much fat will render almost no matter what
#5 Start your smoker within 20 degrees of products living weight
-Don’t stress proteins
-Prevents case hardening
-Get as close to this as possible, a propped lid/door will bleed heat from your smoker or oven but you have to be able to monitor ambient temperature
So, I am not sure how many Veterans we have as meatgistics members but I wanted to take a second and thank any who have served today for their service. Now, we have Free shipping on orders over $75 right now but that isn’t necessarily for veterans day. So, any veterans looking for anything specific? I might be able to work something out if stock allows! I might also just do a coupon code.
Also, a reminder that Gary Sinise isa righteous dude!
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!)
Hey guys, we found a chefs choice 310 sharpener when we cleaned out the kitchen and I am going to give it away to a meatgistics user. I will leave this up for 5 days so enter to win. You should be able to enter daily for bonus entries. We will be doing a social media post later to let people know about this but the only way to enter is to come to this post. Good luck!
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!
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.
So, Austin reminded me yesterday that last year we wrapped up the 13 days of Christmas with a Livestream and since we both enjoy these we will be having one on the last day of Christmas, which in our world is the 21st! We will start around 2:30 PM central time at waltonsinc.com/live We will have some extra coupons and a thing or two other!
We will send out some emails to remind everyone. One other thing…we are going to try to get people to use the Meatgistics App so we will send some push reminders on that as well plus…a thing or two to help with your orders, so go to the google play store and search meatgistics. An IOS app is in the works but currently unavailable.
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!
This is a new category that can be used when you run into an URGENT issue while processing. Austin and Jon have this set up to get an alert from any posts in this category and will do their best to answer these as quickly as possible. There will be times when neither of us are available to respond quickly. Please use this category as needed.
Guys, did a bunch of testing on the 22 today. You’re gonna be happy with this!
These were pretty freaking incredible if I am honest. All done on a griddle, we made 2 weaves of bacon, cooked those then heated marshmallow and added chocolate, then a layer of graham crackers on each side, then added the marshmallow directly to it. Bacon and chocolate is a really good combo!
Attend this Intermediate level class from Meatgistics University by watching the video, reading the article and post any questions you have!
The first thing that we want to make sure we are doing is starting the smoker at low temperatures. To avoid putting too much stress on the proteins we want to stay around 20 degrees from the animals living temperature. A hogs temperature is a little warmer than humans, right around 101° Fahrenheit so we want to start our smoking process around 120°. The other thing we want to do at the start is to dry the outside of the product. For most home smokers this will simply mean opening the top and bottom dampers to allow air to travel through the chamber and dry the surface of the product. This drying stage should usually last around an hour, if you skip this step you will have problems with smoke adhesion and you might end up with a streaky appearance on the surface of your sausage. If you are planning on using a water pan in your smoker I recommend that you NOT add it during this first hour to get the full benefit from the drying phase.
Then, once we are past the drying stage we want to close the dampers down and begin the cooking process by stepping up the temperature gradually. If you try to go directly from 120° to 170° you run the risk of cooking the outside of the sausage too quickly, this is called case hardening and this is how you end up with a product that is overcooked on the outside and under-cooked on the inside. Slowly increasing the temperature will allow the outside of the meat to transfer heat to the interior of the meat easier.
A very important factor when you are smoking any piece of meat is the relative humidity. You’ve heard us talk about the water holding capacity of meat a lot in the past, well Relative Humidity is the water holding capacity of the air and being able to increase that can speed up your cooking process and give you a juicier finished product. Most people at home do not have a way to control the relative humidity in their smokers and just put a pan of water in there, which is better than nothing but it is a shot in the dark. A psychrometer is something that a commercial smokehouse would have that will have both a Dry Bulb and a Wet Bulb and by getting those two reading it can give you the relative humidity.
So, placing a pan of water took our relative humidity from about 10% up to 15%, which as I said, is better than nothing but it isn’t going to make a ton of difference. So I started thinking of ways to increase that. There are a bunch of chemicals you can add to water to make it evaporate quicker but they are not ones that you want around food, you could disturb the waters surface with a constantly moving paddle, you circulate air through it or you can increase the surface area of the water.
The surface area of the water seemed the most doable to me so I have been doing some experimenting with ways to do this. In my pk 100 I took 3 large auto cleaning sponges, soaked them and then placed them so they were mostly out of the water, the sponges will continue to suck up water through them and will offer a better surface for evaporation. When I did this I was able to top out at 50% relative humidity with an average of 47%. I’d call that a pretty significant improvement from the 15% I was getting from a water pan alone.
Next, I bought a dry wick towel and laid it out on a rack above the water pan and draped part of it over and into the water to try to keep it moist. My thought was that this type of towel, much like the sponge would stay moist as it could draw water up from the pan. With this set up I topped out at 54.1% and had an average of 50.1%. I also tried a mop head and a regular towel but these were not as effective.
The last one I want to bring up is pulling your meat out of the smoker and finishing it up in water. I have been doing some testing here on this method and I think it has a lot of promise. So far I have found that the best results are when you smoke it to 130-140° and then move it to water that is a steady 170°. Usually, the 130-160° range takes 3 or more hours, depending on your relative humidity, from 140° your sausage should be up to temp in one hour. Surprisingly putting it in a vacuum bag does not seem to make a noticeable difference in the quality of the meat or the amount of smoke flavor. I am still going to recommend you vacuum bag it for an extra level of safety but plenty of people are doing it without them. One note, if you DO use a vacuum bag and you want to see what the temperature is, make a small cut in the up near the seal, insert your thermometer and then you don’t need a new vac bag if it needs to be cooked longer.
Parksider and gadahl deserve a ton of the credit for the above section (Finishing In Water) as it was gadahl’s great post titled “Summer Sausage Nightmare” that brought up the idea to us and Parksider that recommended it. Since then I have used this technique 4 times and it has never failed!
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!
Feel free to tell Brian how much you liked this!
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