Ref; New Group Lead

[TomKnollRFV]

Count me in for WI Tom!! Haven’t done cheese yet, but I’m a die hard pork guy! I’ve got a guy that works for me that’s got a place that could hold darn near a festival of people I could probably persuade to let us congregate at his place for some beer and meat!

Hey man if you can swing that, I say we make him a pork butt or two for his property use. Hoping to get some sort of gathering together before winter!

 

[SmokinAl]

It is! Be a trip if I knew the man in some way.

His name is Ken Allcox, lives on Murray Road.
Al

 

[hillbillyrkstr]

Looks like your new venture is taking off quick tom! Congrats! Keep it going!

As for bringing more folks from badger country over here to the Great Lake state for next years fattie contest, I’m all for it! We don’t mind teaching you cheese heads how to use a smoker! Lol!

Scott

 

[TomKnollRFV]

His name is Ken Allcox, lives on Murray Road.
Al

I'll have to ask my dad if he remembers him or not!

Looks like your new venture is taking off quick tom! Congrats! Keep it going!

As for bringing more folks from badger country over here to the Great Lake state for next years fattie contest, I’m all for it! We don’t mind teaching you cheese heads how to use a smoker! Lol!

Scott

Ha! An interstate competition would be fun Scott!

 

[HalfSmoked]

Back in the early 60's there was a yacht building business by the name of Trumpies my dad worked there/ They built a boat for Mr. Kimberly. He had a place on Wye Island not to far from me.

Warren

 

[TomKnollRFV]

I'd like to expand upon this notion of a meet up..

Beyond cold cheese smoking; who'd all be interested in whilst we cold smoke the cheese <since it's not exactly hard> also do a batch of mead? I figure we can all chip in possibly for a decent sized batch <Honey is the part that adds up as you can hazard a guess>

Then in a few weeks, get together, bust out some of the cold smoked cheese and do a bottling party and divvy up the mead. Just another suggestion. I think I have every thing needed equipment wise actually.

 

[Carvendive]

What is " a batch of mead"?
Myself, I'd like to get to know a bit more about Tag alder smoked fish and cedar smoked cheese (possibly string cheese or provolone)

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Mead is fermented honey. A drink the vikings consumed :) The term Honeymoney directly refers to the marriage practice of a newly wed only consuming mead for one lunar cycle. Thus, Honeymoon!

Also you don't smoke with Cedar, it's not safe actually. Cedar planked fish is very different then actually using it as your smoking wood. That said, I'd still love to cold smoke some more cheese. We got no lack of places to pick up quality cheese !

 

[Carvendive]

It's a shame you can't smoke with cedar. I once had some that was aged with cedar bows that was pretty good.
I'm pretty sure that I see one of the AMZPS (I think that's the acro) in my future for smoking cheese.

 

[TomKnollRFV]

AMNPS :)

You'll love having one. I use it all the time, only thing I've not used it for was cooks under 3 hours. Alot of my cooking is in the way of 10+ hour smokes, and I actually do them starting ~10-11 PM and run them over night in my MES, AMNPS is vital :)

 

[hillbillyrkstr]

Check out the big brain on Tom!!!

Thanks for the history lesson!

Thinking of naming the new pup Ragnor. Wife’s not digging it. Apparently she doesn’t like to be awesome!

Tried your pear butter the other night tom! It was great! Thanks again.

Tell your old man we said hello.

Scott

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Will do Scott! Also we totally forgot how to spell your wife's name, you should DM it to me with your address just to be on the safe side for card sending :)

You like it? I think as for a jam like thing it's to thin..but man..for a Sundae topper.. Wooo!

Other names:

Thor
Modi
Aesir/Aegir <means Of the Gods>

I decided a while ago any dog I personally get will be named after a Norse thing. Like my Rottie when I had her was Freya, and my GSD is Valkyrie :)

 

[klutzyspuds]

Tom,

I'm disappointed I'm just seeing this now. Not one personally much for smoked cheese--especially with so many great fresh cheeses here in cheeseland, but I do like the idea of a get together.

I live about an hour west of you over along I-39 south of Stevens Point in farm country. Wouldn't be that far to come for a gathering, especially with the kid at school in UW Oshkosh.

Haven't ever competed in any competitions, but the idea of an all day, beverage laden, friendly cook-off sounds intriguing.

Keep everyone posted, Thanks

Mark

 

[TomKnollRFV]

So far Mark I haven't gotten alot of responses, but I say we get some thing going.

I know winter time is hard to arrange a meet up for BBQing and all, but if you come this-a-way we can hit up Parker Johns in Menasha and discuss further plans for the better weather.


Heck, if we did a sausage thing that would be awesome too. I'd chip in to buy the meat, I just really suck at making sausages! But if we had a couple of us together we could crank out snack sticks and send them home to be smoked you know?

 

[klutzyspuds]

I won’t go so far as to say I’m good at making anything, honestly. (Ok, maybe pulled pork. That I’ve got down pretty well). But I have made a few batches of sausage and snack sticks. I have pretty much everything I need to make them, and buy seasonings and casings as per batch.

Being a farmer, I’m much more flexible with my schedule from Dec 1 to April 1 than any other time of year.

Personally I’ve made pork butt, ribs, brisket, sausage, jerky, dried venison, venison bacon, and a couple other things over the years, and I do an occasional large quantity event for my local fire departments Labor Day doings. Not to mention a few batches of hard cider too. So I’m game for just about anything when it comes to a gathering of like minders.

Mark

 

[TomKnollRFV]

You said Hard Cider, my true weakness. I love me some hard cider... we got pear trees. Often thought of getting a cider press to try making pear cider.

As for experience..well..I'll try any thing, and have so far tried alot of the things I read about. Not that I've mastered any thing yet and I find making sausages my ultimate failing. Yet I love some snack sticks.... hrm. I wonder who else from WI will wake up and see this and chime in now?

I say you pick a date and let me know. Right now I'm messing around trying to get my disability, I got alot of free time as a result.

 

[klutzyspuds]

Surprisingly enough, hard cider isn’t too hard to make. Unfortunately, all my (our) cider making equipment was lost to a fire about a month ago in a buddies house fire, so at current I’m down to about half a gallon.

Definitely will be back up and ready by next fall though.

I’ll look my schedule over and try to find a day to sneak away soon and let ya know

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Surprisingly enough, hard cider isn’t too hard to make. Unfortunately, all my (our) cider making equipment was lost to a fire about a month ago in a buddies house fire, so at current I’m down to about half a gallon.

Definitely will be back up and ready by next fall though.

I’ll look my schedule over and try to find a day to sneak away soon and let ya know

Sounds good to me! Shame about that fire..you know, this weekend let me dig out my old brewing equipment. I had some carboys etc and I doubt we ever got rid of them!