Recent content by rgautheir20420

You typically want to have a 20-30% meat to fat ratio. I'll be making venison kabanosi sticks with 21mm casings tonight using straight pork fat and ground venison.

I wouldn't use any sort of moisture retention ingredient in making salami. The point is to dry it out, not maintain moisture. Just my .02 cents.

Thanks atomic. This is 1 of 2 the other one is still maybe a week or two out and that's the one that was smoked. Should be a fun side by side.

Okie dokie. So one of these finally got to 30% weight loss yesterday so I pulled it. It looks great. I'll be vacuum sealing and aging it a bit in the fridge before I slice it up thin.

1. Do you have to soak the wood chips first? If so, how long. **Never soak chips*** 2. Can I put in three slabs of brisket at the same time- one in each rack? ***Fit whatever you can fit. But depending on which MES you've got you may need not be able to fit a whole packer. In a 40 you would***...

It will continue to loose weight in the fridge. You may need to vac seal it no?

If you want to use Cure #1 instead of TQ, you'll add .25% of the total meat/fat weight in Cure #1. When it comes to salt, you're going to get a difference in preference of the final product. The range usually being 2.5-3.0 % of the total weight. I'm usually adding 2.75% to my stuff and I've been...

That's pretty much how this hobby goes.

A suggestion would be to go somewhere local that might be making their own stuff and see about getting one off of them. Otherwise, you could make a bologna loaf instead? 

Uuuuuhhh I'm pretty this applies.....   Just curious what's it's looking like with the cure and spices loaded on :)

Bear, when curing beef and warm smoking (not cooking), I don't see that as dried beef. I agree that it won't taste like bacon....it's beef. But it will have a cured smoked flavor along with whatever seasonings were used in the cure and before going into the smoker. If he doesn't cook to IT when...

That looks pretty good to me! Don't do bacon without a cure. Especially since it's your first time. Do you already have cure? I know Morton's Tenderquick is usually available in grocery stores. I'm a Cure #1 user which MIGHT be available at a local butcher shop or you'd need to order it offline...

I get mine from a local store that makes their own sausage. I just called and asked them about it and they said they'd sell them too. Might be worth a try. Sheep casings are always more expensive than hog casings...no getting around that.