So after seeing Disco's thread
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/247325/passing-wind-estates-hot-dogs
I decided I wanted to make some hot dogs using moose meat and pork fat, but I wanted to try skinless. We have been getting some deer meat made into hotdogs at a processing facility in Edmonton, because it's kind of in between my friends place in Alberta and my place here in BC. Typically, we will hunt for a couple weeks in Alberta, and he will drop whatever meat he wants processed for salami, pepperoni, hotdogs, and whatever else he gets, and include 10 lbs or so that I have processed into hotdogs.
Since I have been processing my own game meat, I have still gotten him to get hotdogs done for me, so I really wanted to make my own. We eat these hunting, camping, or doing whatever, so we leave the cellulose skins on until we eat them. They usually end up cooked on a stick over the fire to an IT of who knows, so I wanted them fully cooked to a safe temp before freezing.
Anyway, here we go
7 lbs moose on the left, 3 lbs ground pork with about 25% fat on the right. These have been ground once through a fine plate and will be mostly refrozen, then ground again through the fine plate.
I also added 2 lbs of pure back fat, twice ground as well
Once that was all ground, we mixed it with the seasonings and cure, and some ice
I wasn't thrilled with how the texture looked after mixing, so I decided to add some more ice and run the whole batch through the food processor. Sorry I don't have any pics, but after that I stuffed it into 25 mm cellulose casings. The stuffing went well, although I did get some air pockets, but the tying was a nightmare.
I was just using regular butcher string, and it seemed to want to grab and pinch the cellulose casing, causing a blowout. So I would then just tie again a little farther up, but of course the pressure inside the casing had already been reduced. This became a bit of an issue later on.
So here's the whole batch ready to go back into the fridge onto racks. You can see yet another blowout that needed to be fixed.
And finally all in the fridge overnight
So the next morning, I got them all arranged onto rods, and dealt with a couple more blowouts
And finally into the smoker
Smoked for 3 hours @ 130 deg
Getting the water bath ready to take them up to 165 IT
I managed to get them all in
Used a lid with some weight to hold them all underwater
Got the ice water bath ready
And in they go. The meat had definitely firmed up, so I didn't need to be super careful handling them anymore
I put them back in the powered down smoker overnight to dry out. You can see some are a bit shrivelly, and some are plump and firm. The shrivelly ones are the ones that had a blowout at one point or another.
But we had to try them out last night for dinner, so we had chill dogs
And then I had some hot dogs for lunch today
And then we vacuum packed them into packages of 6
So they turned out super duper juicy, and other than the problems with tying the casings, it wasn't too big of a deal. I'm thinking some kind of waxed string will be better for tying. The flavour is excellent, and the texture is right on the money. I may reduce the fat by 5% or so next time, and I might use 30 mm casings as well.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/247325/passing-wind-estates-hot-dogs
I decided I wanted to make some hot dogs using moose meat and pork fat, but I wanted to try skinless. We have been getting some deer meat made into hotdogs at a processing facility in Edmonton, because it's kind of in between my friends place in Alberta and my place here in BC. Typically, we will hunt for a couple weeks in Alberta, and he will drop whatever meat he wants processed for salami, pepperoni, hotdogs, and whatever else he gets, and include 10 lbs or so that I have processed into hotdogs.
Since I have been processing my own game meat, I have still gotten him to get hotdogs done for me, so I really wanted to make my own. We eat these hunting, camping, or doing whatever, so we leave the cellulose skins on until we eat them. They usually end up cooked on a stick over the fire to an IT of who knows, so I wanted them fully cooked to a safe temp before freezing.
Anyway, here we go
7 lbs moose on the left, 3 lbs ground pork with about 25% fat on the right. These have been ground once through a fine plate and will be mostly refrozen, then ground again through the fine plate.
I also added 2 lbs of pure back fat, twice ground as well
Once that was all ground, we mixed it with the seasonings and cure, and some ice
I wasn't thrilled with how the texture looked after mixing, so I decided to add some more ice and run the whole batch through the food processor. Sorry I don't have any pics, but after that I stuffed it into 25 mm cellulose casings. The stuffing went well, although I did get some air pockets, but the tying was a nightmare.
I was just using regular butcher string, and it seemed to want to grab and pinch the cellulose casing, causing a blowout. So I would then just tie again a little farther up, but of course the pressure inside the casing had already been reduced. This became a bit of an issue later on.
So here's the whole batch ready to go back into the fridge onto racks. You can see yet another blowout that needed to be fixed.
And finally all in the fridge overnight
So the next morning, I got them all arranged onto rods, and dealt with a couple more blowouts
And finally into the smoker
Smoked for 3 hours @ 130 deg
Getting the water bath ready to take them up to 165 IT
I managed to get them all in
Used a lid with some weight to hold them all underwater
Got the ice water bath ready
And in they go. The meat had definitely firmed up, so I didn't need to be super careful handling them anymore
I put them back in the powered down smoker overnight to dry out. You can see some are a bit shrivelly, and some are plump and firm. The shrivelly ones are the ones that had a blowout at one point or another.
But we had to try them out last night for dinner, so we had chill dogs
And then I had some hot dogs for lunch today
And then we vacuum packed them into packages of 6
So they turned out super duper juicy, and other than the problems with tying the casings, it wasn't too big of a deal. I'm thinking some kind of waxed string will be better for tying. The flavour is excellent, and the texture is right on the money. I may reduce the fat by 5% or so next time, and I might use 30 mm casings as well.
