that dang Denny O !!

I probably should of titled this different as I truly am not cussing the guy,I actually owe him a debt of gratitude!!
why?? after reading several threads here concerning pellet smokers,recipe’s and the like,I bought a GMG Daniel Boone smoker grill near the middle of July.
I had considered what many of you have suggested but went with the GMG smoker grill as I have known the guy who sells them here for many years and I know his service is top notch,that and he is only a few miles from my home.
this is where Denny O has helped me along with this new learning curve.

Denny and I have been discussing getting into my own meat processing here at home for several months now and my first purchase was a LEM 15Lb stuffer,the idea was to start making bologna and sausages using store bought ground beef.
Denny thought I should look at a grinder also,a week later,a new Lem big bite #8 grinder showed up here at home also.
talk about a meat eating machine!!! it might have taken a whole two minutes to coarse grind about seventeen pounds of chuck,trimmings from a 23Lb short rib purchase that was on sale,and a pound of fat.

the second grind with the fine plate took a bit longer,maybe four minutes as I had to clean the plate once as I had plugged it with sinew that I missed when trimming and slicing the chuck.
my wife helped me with the blending and wrapping,clean up,etc.that took about fifteen minutes.
we ended up with eight packages of burger that looked and smelled awesome even still being raw,I was impressed that the color was even all the way through,and no browning like you see in the store case!!
now to get a vacuum sealer and a slicer,I can see now that this is going to turn into a fun and delicious hobby!!!
plus it will give me something to do all winter long.

next up is making my own beef summer sausage and bologna using my new found skills with the smoker grill,that in and of itself was a learning curve also from formerly using real wood and charcoal to cook with.
sure,I have invested some hard earned money in these things so far,but when you consider I am saving around three bucks a pound buying boxed chuck,it will not take too long to recover my investment and it is fun!!
we tried some of the fresh ground burger tonight for the first time,the last time I had a burger any where near that good was about twelve years ago when my kid brother gave us some ground beef from a butcher calf he had raised,before that was when I was a kid a long time ago on the farm and we raised our own beef,outstanding is all I can say!!

why the heck did I wait this long to get into this??? if anyone is procrastinating about doing this,quit now,go buy the things you need, one at a time if you have to,I did,and I will tell you outright it is worth every penny you will spend,and worth the time you will invest, and it gives you total control over the quality of your favorite foods.

My heartfelt thanks to you Denny,you sure have put up with a lot from me and my many,many emailings!!
I also want to extend a thanks to SuperDave for his recipes and wonderful looking pictures he puts up once in a while as well as many others who take the time to do so,you have kept me going,thanks guys!!!
last but not least,thank you IDO for this site,without it,I would still be cooking on a hickory fire in an old ag equipment rim!!!
( its still there for campfires,and an occasional walk,er,uh,cook off in memory lane )
sheldon

Oh boy….jumped from the pan to the fire…..good for you!

I’ve been doing most of my own pork for years and sausage making came along with it. Venison I can’t remember when I started processing my own but it was in the early 1970’s. I have a couple grinders, including an #8 LEM Big Bite like yours.

Do get the vacuum sealer. Sealed under a vacuum red meat will freeze for over two years and come out as fresh as the day you packaged it. Pork, poultry and fish the same.

Check out a book store for sausage making manuals and recipe books. I have several…. if I can get them back from the son-in-law. lol This sausage making can really grow on you. I’m looking at doing a batch of slow cure, dried pepperoni. No heat involved at all and requires different cure and other additives but it just seems like something I need to do.

“Blush, blush”
Thank you for your kind words, my friend!

As I told Sheldon back in the very beginning, it will be an addiction when he wanted to expand into “Smoking Meat”!

I got into smoking when I purchased my first 22″ webber basic charcoal kettle that only stood on 3 legs and had a sauce dish under it. Hummmm, the winter of 1976. I had a full left leg cast and was not employed while recovering from getting “Tee Boned” on my fathers 350 Honda @ the intersection of I35/80 and Highway 6. I was laid up for 6 months. My new wife of less than 6 months was LIVID then! (I seem to remember it had something to do with no income). My wife had admitted that even though my timing was a total miss, it was one of the best investments that I had introduced into our lives!

So 2 years later with having some corrective surgeries and both feet are in a cast for another several months, I came home with the “Rotisserie ring, spitz and motor”. YEP! serve it up and let the poop hit the fan once again 2 years later! Then an other 1 to 2 years later the same comment from my dear loving wife.

Fast forward to 2016 after I spied her in our 7th grade year in Junior High and she did not know that I even existed until our Sophomore year in High School Momma, has very little interest to going out for dinner. Man I do Love my Highschool Sweetheart!

Ok,ok, sorry for the sloshy sidebar.

I got derailed to replying to Sheldon’s post, sorry.

Iowa Boy, (Sheldon) told me that he had ordered the LEM 15 lb stuffer (after many e-mails about smokers). I was taken back on the amount that he was thinking about doing @ one time with no discussion of any grinders. Well that hav progressed for many e-mails as well.

He has dove into this “home brew” so to speak into the last year talking about smoking and has Excelled into the full processing within a couple of months! Hell, I did this transition in the last 40 years!

Even though I’ve gone through a few “22 inch Weber Kettle” grills, my second smoker and just now on my second food vacuum machine, I agree with Momma, It Is Tough to Go Out to Eat and not be disappointed while leaving the restaurant asking our selves why? Don’t get me wrong! We have had several well presented and tasteful meals, but for at what price point as opposed to what we may be ably to craft at home?

Thanks Iowa Boy, (Sheldon) for you appreciation! I have tried to give you my most honest critique of questioned products at the time when you have asked.

Tom,
In doing an air cured, slow dried sausages, don’t you need to maintain air temps 40 to 55 degrees?

Into the frying pan, you have no idea haw fast Sheldon did it in! LOL

You are right about the vac sealers! I’ve had some meat sealed in the freezer so far after 3 years and had no signs of a burn! There is not hardly much of anything that hangs out that long in there but,,,, once in a blue moon poop happens!

Sheldon have any deer that needs ground? Ad 10 -20 % fat and fareway breakfast seasoning makes great sausage.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

Oh boy….jumped from the pan to the fire…..good for you!

I’ve been doing most of my own pork for years and sausage making came along with it. Venison I can’t remember when I started processing my own but it was in the early 1970’s. I have a couple grinders, including an #8 LEM Big Bite like yours.

Do get the vacuum sealer. Sealed under a vacuum red meat will freeze for over two years and come out as fresh as the day you packaged it. Pork, poultry and fish the same.

Check out a book store for sausage making manuals and recipe books. I have several…. if I can get them back from the son-in-law. lol This sausage making can really grow on you. I’m looking at doing a batch of slow cure, dried pepperoni. No heat involved at all and requires different cure and other additives but it just seems like something I need to do.

Tom, are either of these what you have? or your kids ;<)
Sausage Making: The Definitive Guide with Recipes by Ryan Farr, or this one,
Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman

The best book I have on sausage is one by Charles G Reavis titled “Home Sausage Making”. It covers a lot of ground and is very easy to understand. I got my copy at a Barnes and Noble. The cover’s upc says $14.95, US.

Denny O wrote:

Tom,
In doing an air cured, slow dried sausages, don’t you need to maintain air temps 40 to 55 degrees?

Sorry DennyO…..I just saw this.

I shoot to dry/cure my pepperoni while its fairly cool in the garage. 35 to 50 degrees is good as long as the 50 is only a couple day range. You don’t want the meat to freeze but you don’t want any real heat either. I rigged up a low draw 110 volt fan to draw air over the links and this got the drying time down to around 3-4 weeks. I started to test a link at 23 days and took the fan off at 29 but left the meat hang yet another 10 days before vacuum sealing the links.

I have to dig thru some sites to locate it but I also used a sausage was on the outside of the links while they were hanging and drying. It just sprays on, drips off and dries and prevents any surface mold from taking root. I’ll find the product and source for you.

Here ya go Denny.

http://www.sausagemaker.com/Potassium-Sorbate-8-oz-p/11-1036.htm

THanks Tom! Something I’ve wanted to try , I just have to find that temped area in my house. My detached garage is a no go. too much saw dust happens in there. Maybe my enclosed front porch will do, it is unheated other than the full basement is under it. may add a small ceramic heater to keep it from freezing?
Don’t know, just thinking. Bacon is another one I’m kicking around. With that Wrights (from Sams Club) is darn hard to beat!

The big thing with grinding and stuffing is “clean”. While room temperatures are important and some understanding of the different cures and other additives is necessary, keeping your work area neat and clean is very important. When I am grinding or stuffing I have a pile of clean towels handy along with three ice cream pails of water, two that have three or four drops of dish soap and a 1/4 cup of bleach one used for the knives the other has a scrubbie for cleaning surfaces and the third with just the bleach for wiping off work surfaces and rinsing the knives after washing. When any bucket of water gets funky looking I change it out.

Grinders and stuffers can be a real hound to clean after using but take time to get a brush set for this purpose so you can do a good job of cleaning. And Use HOT water and plenty of soap. When the stuffer/grinder is ready to re-assemble for storage give the parts a spray of the food grade oil or grease to keep any rust from starting up while tucked away.

Working with meat is nice in a heated area but you will find that working in a cooler area makes the work less messy. I find that right around 40 to 45 degrees lets me work without having to worry about spoilage and is a great temperature for keeping some stiffness in the meat for grinding.

You can cut some cost corners by stuffing off your grinder too but there is a lot of things going on at the same time when you do it this way, some of which is safety related. I did this for years using an Oster grinder….try about 28 years. I sure like having a larger grinder with steel innards and much more power and I like having a vertical stuffer that is large enough to do four or five summer sausage on a fill. Find yourself some reading material/recipe books for references and get familiar with terminology and the different components you’ll be using and have at it Denny. Great food. Easy to do. And nothing is better than chowing down on something you made.

sooo………you trading in your trademark name crappietom to sausagetom???????

Not this week Glenn. Maybe next.