Hello to All,
I live in Wisconsin, retired USAF, and have been using this forum for some time as a guest -- hats off to Pops and others for thoughts and recipes.
My smoker -- the big one -- is a homemade 220V stainless 3'x5'x6' "double fridge". It can handle about 150lbs of 24" #3 summer just to give you a example. It is housed in a garage and is run by a slide-in auger that feeds sawdust to the burner. It can be set to a 0 to 60sec "twitch" that dusts the burner allowing a very fast smoke. Control temp ranges from 80 to ??? in winter and around 100 to ??? in summer. I also have a modified cold smoke box that fits in-between the removable auger and the smoker. Smoker can run unattended for over 24hrs. It's quite the contraption. I also have a much smaller Masterbuilt stainless that I do fish in (about 200pints a year) and a propane gas smoker for smaller sausage batches that is about 2'x2'x3'.
As a note: I started doing fish -- usually canned -- in about 00' and really started hitting sausage in 09'. Things I have done is 1000s lbs of summer and stix plus ham, bacon, Mettwurst (cold and hot smoked) and Landjäger (cold and hot). Sometimes I will uses premixed seasonings (especially for summer) but I really get into scratch recipes.
I have smoked, in various forms, Elk, Whitetail, Bear, Gray Squirrel, Ground Hog ,Turkey, Ducks, and Geese. For fish -- Black Sucker (canned), Catfish (canned), Trout, Northern Pike (canned) and Whitefish (canned). Even smoked for immediate eats Largemouth Bass.
For processing we use two industrial Grinders and Kirby Campbell's (Cannon) bucket mixer and #30 water stuffer -- amongst some manual stuffers.
We also make varieties of non-cured sausage like Potato (locally renowned as best), Longanisa, Brat, Cabbage, ect...
Well that's all. Hope you enjoyed the read.
Irv
I live in Wisconsin, retired USAF, and have been using this forum for some time as a guest -- hats off to Pops and others for thoughts and recipes.
My smoker -- the big one -- is a homemade 220V stainless 3'x5'x6' "double fridge". It can handle about 150lbs of 24" #3 summer just to give you a example. It is housed in a garage and is run by a slide-in auger that feeds sawdust to the burner. It can be set to a 0 to 60sec "twitch" that dusts the burner allowing a very fast smoke. Control temp ranges from 80 to ??? in winter and around 100 to ??? in summer. I also have a modified cold smoke box that fits in-between the removable auger and the smoker. Smoker can run unattended for over 24hrs. It's quite the contraption. I also have a much smaller Masterbuilt stainless that I do fish in (about 200pints a year) and a propane gas smoker for smaller sausage batches that is about 2'x2'x3'.
As a note: I started doing fish -- usually canned -- in about 00' and really started hitting sausage in 09'. Things I have done is 1000s lbs of summer and stix plus ham, bacon, Mettwurst (cold and hot smoked) and Landjäger (cold and hot). Sometimes I will uses premixed seasonings (especially for summer) but I really get into scratch recipes.
I have smoked, in various forms, Elk, Whitetail, Bear, Gray Squirrel, Ground Hog ,Turkey, Ducks, and Geese. For fish -- Black Sucker (canned), Catfish (canned), Trout, Northern Pike (canned) and Whitefish (canned). Even smoked for immediate eats Largemouth Bass.
For processing we use two industrial Grinders and Kirby Campbell's (Cannon) bucket mixer and #30 water stuffer -- amongst some manual stuffers.
We also make varieties of non-cured sausage like Potato (locally renowned as best), Longanisa, Brat, Cabbage, ect...
Well that's all. Hope you enjoyed the read.
Irv