Hi, from Sunny Texas!

[cliff43j]

My son & I are newbies to smoking sausages & meats even though we both have gray hair.  We live in Pearland, Texas, and can't wait to make our first sausages. 

I bought some premium sausages 5 days ago and had the maddening experience of biting into 3 pieces of inedible meat by-products in the first 5 bites that I had.  I took another sausage, cut it open and examined the contents.  I was disappointed to say the least.  2 hours later I ordered a sausage stuffer - 7 liter capacity, stainless steel, 2 speed - today it arrived 

  So far I am well pleased with its construction.  It needed the usual hot, soapy water washing and rinsing - fairly simple.  There was a casting burr on the plastic handle.  A few strokes with a fine file took care of that quickly.  The stamped sheet metal pieces look good, but I will take some emery cloth to the edges as they are a wee bit on the sharp side for my liking - this should be about a 3 minute job - no big deal. The unit is a bit larger than I had imagined it to be, but it appears to be a nice size to work with as it shouldn't require clamping to the counter top as the smaller units do.

We do not have a smoker, yet.  It will be my next purchase.  The big decision is what to buy.  I don't want a big log burner or smaller pellet burner.  That would indicate, at least to me, an electric or propane gas unit.  From what I've read so far, MasterBuilt appears to be a fair brand - not without its problems which appear to be widespread but easy to fix.  Actually every brand of smoker appears to have shortcomings that need fairly easy fixing, so I'm not looking for the perfect smoker.  After the smoker I'll probably be looking for a better meat grinder, but our KitchenAid Pro will have to do for now.

I've got a sausage recipe book coming - mostly for ideas.  The big bugaboo will be finding recipes that we really like.  If there are any suggestions out there - I welcome them.  We are looking at making breakfast sausage links, country sausage links, kielbasa, and a few other types initially.  After we get our smoker, the sky is the limit.  As it stands right now my wife says that if I can buy pork at $1/# and make my own sausages I'll just about breakeven after 185 links,,,lol,,,she has a great sense of humor - little does she know about the smoker and the meat grinder

May the smoke be with you,

Cliff.

 

[SmokinAl]

Welcome to the forum Cliff!

Glad to have you aboard!

Al

 

[gary s]

  Good morning and welcome to the forum from a cloudy and gloomy day here in East Texas, and the best site on the web. Lots of          great people with tons of information on just about everything.

         I would start out simple and go from there on what flavors you like. And small batches, that way if you don't like it you haven't spent a lot of money.  Also do the fry test, it will give you a pretty good idea if you have it the way you want it.

Lots of great sausage makers on here

        Gary

 

[sundown farms]

Hi - I am also from Houston. A great supplier for all things sausage and more is Allied Kenco Sales just off IH45 (take the Airline exit) north of IH610 North.

As for a smoker I like my MES 40, Gen. 2.5. As you read about smokers here those abbreviations and numbers will make sense.  To get you started MES is Masterbuilt Electric Smoker. I found mine used on Craigs List by a guy in Baytown.

 

[cliff43j]

Glad to be here!

Gary, we did a small smoke for our first attempt, as you suggested.  It was a 9# brisket.  Needless to say we made several correctable "fluffs", but the brisket came out full of flavor.  The amount of smoke was "just right".  Our homemade rub was delicious to me, but my son felt that there was just a tad too much pepper in it.  Our biggest problem was a late start because of rain.  We ended up smokin' on our front porch which worked out just great :-)  Well, I had to go for an MRI so my son took over - still he did a good job for our first effort.  We enjoyed eating it while it was still warm.

Hey Sundown, you're just up the road (hwy. 288) a piece from me.  Thanks for the name of the local supplier.  My son & I will have to take a visit there soon.  My MES is also used - got it for $50 in trade as it didn't work.  It's a Model # 20070311, Serial # BB111536.  I don't know if this is one of those that needs a smoke pan retrofit kit or not.  I got it home, plugged it in, followed the instructions and IT WORKED!!!  I was one happy dude.  I cleaned the inside of the door and where it fit all around as it had apparently been leaking heat & smoke badly judging by the deposits.  I tightened the latch, and we had no smoke loss via the door :-)  I replaced the interior light and cleaned the glass cover - kind of a useless effort as the lamp doesn't throw much light.  The drip pan on the outside & back was missing.  A quick stop at Wally World, $4 for an 8" cake pan and a wee bit of a squeeze with my electrical pliers on the protruding edge produced a great alternative to the factory grease catcher at $29.95!

I do have one problem that I haven't looked into, yet.  The internal meat temperature sensor does not work.  Fortunately I had a great Taylor unit on hand, so I slipped the sensor in through the top air vent and into the meat, and all was well :-)

.

I can hardly wait to do our next brisket, but sonny boy bought a pork shoulder so that will get done first,

 

[sundown farms]

Yup. I am off 249 in the Willowbrook Mall area.  Sounds like you had more to fix and clean with the used MES than I did. You also paid a lot less. Mine cleaned up just fine. I have the small drip pan that hangs off the back but it has never caught anything as I used an aluminum pan under butts and other grease heavy meats. The drippings make great finishing sauces and I do not want to have to clean up the mess.

I do not use the built in meat probe for meat. I have used it to monitor the temp on a grate to gauge how it differs from the fixed probe in the back panel and my Thermoworks probes. The temps inside an MES can vary quite a bit but that is easy to get use to.

I also tried to clean up the interior light but that was hopeless. A cheapo LED flashlight works fine.

Beware when you go to Allied Kenco that you will be in the ultimate carnivores toy store.