Greetings from the Philippines!

Thanks guys, I look forward to learning as much as will stick in my ol' noggin.  I'm smoking some hotdogs right now, a little hickory for them until they reach 150F, the same with a small batch of maple cured bacon after the hotdogs are done.  I will watch the tutorial soon.  I love to see how folks with experience do it.

My "inexpensive" meat grinder died and I'm using an old style #32 hand grinder with my bro-n-law providing most of the elbow grease.  It really makes you appreciate what they used to have to do before electricity was common.

Tatoosh

I'm about six hours outside of Manila.  They have grinders, but mostly either very cheap Chinese or they import from the USA.  Where you gonna find the 110v power?  The Philippines is 220v kinda sorta. Step down transformers are commonly available, but the price jumps up if you need a hunky one to handle the larger power draw an electric meat grinder often demands.  That will set you back a few bucks.  Baguio City used to be 110v when the Philippines was an American colony, but those days are long gone.  A few guys, will spend the extra bucks and build their houses wired 220v/110v.  It's not common here in my experience except for private homes of foreigners that pay the extra.  Also "Brown Outs" as they are named here, what we call Black Outs in the USA, are not all that uncommon.  That includes Manila and anywhere else the Philippine flag flies. They will take down the power monthly to work on the lines, those are 8 hour outages.  A bad typhoon or drunk driver, power outages can run from a few hours to days, and out in the more remote province, weeks. 

I'm a newbie at grinding,  I have tried one cheap machine, from the USA.  It worked for a few months but since I was freezing my meat too much, it died.  Plus the necessity of the step down transformer for it.  Now I'm putting together an "old school" rig, similar to the hand grinders you used to see, but with a pulley and a 220v half horse motor that won't need a step down transformer.  Plus if the motor sucks up, it can be repaired easily locally.  A nice #32 heavy duty will chomp meat for me by June.  

My advice, bring it from the States.  Anything culinary is either expensive or impossible to find.  Good knives, good pots and pans, casings for sausage, you name it.  A grinder, for sure.  Buy it there, as well as a stuffer if you are doing sausages, and ship over Balik Bayan, the cheap cargo ship method.  I brought good kitchenware which is a god send here.  You can buy cast iron, Lodge, but for an amazing mark up. Buy it in the USA and ship it over BB. 

Have you lived for any length of time in the Philippines before? 

Tatoosh - Baguio City
 

Hey, sorry, I didn't catch you wife was from CDO, nice place I hear!  Haven't had a chance to visit there, health problems hit me that limit my ability to sashay around the islands the way I'd like to.  There are some very interesting guys living down there.  A French Canadian is starting a dairy farm in that area or near by.  We will come back to the States in 2014 or 2015 for a few years.  I hope to improve my knowledge of BBQ/Smoking and also learn a bit about cheese making as well. 

I take it you will do a step down to your house?  That will work nicely.  I'd still bring the grinder from the States.  Much much better quality control.  Same for a vac packer.  Dunno about your area, but where I live they sell "Pink Salt".  If you ask if it is #1 or #2, they will give you a puzzled looks.  It's all been repackaged so no way to know.  I actually order mine from the States so I know what the heck I am using. 

If you haven't heard of "My-ShoppingBox.com" you need to.  I use them but have not other stake in them.  Once you are here, getting small items from the States is way expensive, but the shopping box folks make it pretty reasonable, sometimes even cheaper to ship from the US to the Philippines than inside the US proper.  Who dah thunk?

Mahbuhay Bro! 

Sounds great and that's the way we plan to do our electrical if we build a house here.  Though if we can afford it, I want to buy our own transformer, so it will be a bit more stable than the local electric company's. 

Milk, well the UHT stuff should be fine as long as not opened prior to buying.  I think there is an SM mall in CDO but not sure.  Can't use the UHT stuff for making cheese and it doesn't have quite the same flavor as fresh milk, but it's a lot better than nothing. 

Gotta be careful of the fresh produce depending on whose growing it and their watering and handling practices.  Typhoid is a common disease here, so is Amoebiasis, all due to either use of human waste water for fertilizing or poor food handling/prep practics.  Now, I know guys that have not caught either and eat fresh produce predominately, also know both foreigners and locals that spent a fair amount of time in the hospital with them.  Luck o' the draw. 

Amazing timing on the Kitchen Aid, I'm getting one for my wife's baking and my sausage making.  Buying the Pro 600 model in the States and shipping here Balik Bayan.  You can get the classic and the Artisan models for around $500 bucks locally.  They are 220v but underpowered compared to the Pro 600 model.  Repair is a horse of a different color when they find out it is not the local model.

This looks like a great place to get info and share ideas.  Good luck and fair winds on your trip over! 

Mahbuhay Bro ... Love, Peace, & Bacon Grease