Reuben with my 1st pastrami for dinner! Everyone loved it.

Salmon, salt and sugar brined then hot smoked.
Dill Hollandaise sauce with my lemons.
Grilled asparagus and zucchini with lemon and garlic.
Sushi rice, dill style: sprinkled with coriander salt, sugar, vinegar, with turmeric and fresh dill.
Pink Moscato sparkling wine in honor of tonight’s “pink moon”.
Lemons and oranges from my trees.

My polish sausage, hot smoked. Quick seared.
Marianski recipe, 32mm hog casings, frozen pork stock instead of water, 1.5x garlic. Served with Colman’s English mustard.

Brussel sprouts, blanched then face fried in oil til crispy, tossed in balsamic vinegar/brown sugar/coriander-salt syrup.

Mac and cheese: Kraft, but reheated with Queso, cream, truffle salt, cayenne.

Cheery tomato salad with pickling cucumbers and sweet Maui onion with a vinaigrette.

… I was supposed to make Canadian bacon today, bought the loin, then got hungry.

Terry Kostiw
TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ answer: use nonfat dry milk, not whole.

I did a bunch of reading on dry milk over last 2 weeks. There is not much hard data… a LOT of internet posts by folks following recipes, but very little if any I could find from meat scientists. Data from recipe makers is fine, if they ever once ran a test of “make one with dry whole, one with dry nonfat, here are results”, or even just allude to past experience saying they HAD made such batches. But that believable post from a reliable source didn’t exist in the top 500 google hits under various searches (<<turns out google prioritizes general reader content, only once I got links for Dairy Science journals did I find good info). I’m sure many experienced sausage makers have done it, they just aren’t posting about it much. Maybe because every recipe already directs the use of non-fat, so they figure it’s covered? Don’t know.

Here is what I found, reading posts on the chemistry.

1. Dry milk, while vs. Non fat-- USE THE NONFAT. The binding comes from the sugar lactose, which in nonfat makes up 50% of the product. Other components can be milk are 35 % proteins like caseinate, also a good binder and emulsifier.
   The “binding” comes from ability to hold water without it breaking loose at cooking temps. The fat binding comes from fat being coated in these protein water structures and held in place, apparently by a loose bond to the lactose-water structure and milk proteins, though this bond was just referred to, I haven’t seen any writeups on the molecular structure or bonding sites.
   –the two references I read on milk fat said the included fat took up bonding from the meat fats, and reduced the efficiency of the meat fat bonding
   – also mentioned, milk fat soft at room temps, did not survive the bond at cooking temps. No chemistry shown for that one.
   – lastly was the rancidity issue, apparently granulating and drying milk fat massively exposes it to O2 and leads to easy oxidation, and difficulty of storage in normal bags and for lengthy times.

2. My main interest was actual data showing a difference between “hi temp dry milk” sold by sausage makers, and “low temp dry milk”, normal stuff sold in all stores. Difference being production temperatures of 130ish vs. 160ish. It is said the low temp common version doesn’t bind sausage as well, leading to some posters saying not at all. Apparently preheat temperature prior to spray drying process changes the product protein structures, or nature of lactose. I’m sure there is a study in the meat science literature but I haven’t found it yet… (edit, found some good research, will post below)

Anyways, sorry for long answer, your question just happened to coincide with a curent research interest;) I use a lot of dry milk for weekly yogurt, like you I’m wondering if I can just stock one version.

Cinco de Mayo!
Pork Butt on smoker, brown sugar/cumin/garlic rub, half for pulled pork and half diced up for carnitas.
Corn tortillas, guacamole, fresh pico de gallo, queso fresca. White sweet corn. Bud Lime with limes. Lime cilantro cole slaw.

Started a pork loin for Canadian bacon today, 7lbs. My first try at this.
Read a ton of different recipes. Was going to go with the pumped brine method in Marianski’s Home Production book, even bought a good injection pumper from Walton’s. That is a liquid brine, pump meat to 110% it’s start weight with brine, and soak in brine. But it is done brining in 5 days, and keeps getting saltier after that… and I will be on a trip unable to finish it then.

So I went with a dry rub or dry brine, using just the correct amount of salt etc, an “equilibrium brine”. Eric at 2guysandacooler youtube channel uses that method almost exclusively. Since I had a video of his to reference for good results with the recipe, I used his.

Read some outstanding dry brine research by former Bell Labs director Greg Blonder on rates of salt and nitrate penetration, final chemical distribution, etc, at genuineideas dot com if anyone us interested in some clever science, processhead mrobisr .

In 14 days or so I will smoke to 155 IT and see how it is!

Made my first smoked sausage after doing breakfast and Italian. Couple weeks ago. Have made various fresh chorizo and Italian mixes before with food processors.
Went with the hot smoked Polish sausage from Marianski book, 5kg/11 lbs, 12 lbs after water. Turned out fantastic, awesome authentic taste. Zero problems.

Ground meat with my 1hp Meat! #22 grinder, 10mm plate for meat and 4.5mm plate for fat. Used pork butt, but cut off most fat for separate grind. It was 4kg meat, 1kg fat. Mixed in 20lb mixer from Meat!, exact same as Walton one just different branding, 10 min or so to excellent protein extraction. Used vitamin c ascorbic acid as accelerant.

I used hog casings on sleeve from LEM. Used my grinder to stuff the 32mm cases to 12-14 inch. That wasn’t as easy as it could be, grinder came with plastic tubes with cone shape, made getting cases onto tube difficult. I also linked as I stuffed, next time I will stuff one rope then link after, would have been much faster.

Living in AZ, sausage was pretty dry to start. To achieve temperature schedule with my Traeger I did this:

1. Dry. I tossed links in convection oven on proof setting, around 120, with door open, for 30 min to dry. Could tell meat was really cured nice at end, I checked a couple and retied ends.
2. Smoke. Put all 12 lbs on Traeger on 2 levels, main plus a rack 2in higher I use for jerky. Turned on “smoke” start setting, lots of smoke generated and temp gradually rises. Average is 140 for 45 min or so, then rose to 160 to 180 after it began heating up metal.
3. Cook, on lowest setting after Smoke, which is 180f. Luckily it was a cold evening and smoker held 175 to 180f. About 90 min, total time 2+15.
4. Tossed in ice water to stop cooking and chill, 10min.
5. Storage. Bagged in gallon ziplocks bulk, froze. Vacuum sealed next day in smaller quantities of 4 or 5.

Lessons Learned.

1. Grinder stuffing is poor. Your wonderful texture and fat chunks get a bit smeared. Doesn’t feed much and gets smeared by worm drive, if you’re not pressing down on pestle. This makes one man stuffing very hard. I ended up turning grinder off after every link so it wouldnt smear while trying to get more meat into feed tube. So I did a link, off, made link, filled feed with sausage mix, grinder back on… yeah it worked but…
2. You guessed it, I immediately bought a 15 lb sausage stuffer. I liked design from Meat! Better than anything from LEM or here. No vertical feed pipe to hold a lot of meat, 100% steel gears, rated for small tube 10mm and snack sticks, wider than others so not as unwieldy tall, better hydraulics on area ratios.
3. I can only do 1 batch on Traeger then off and cool down. This time, I also made German brats while this was smoking. Unfortunately I put them on after Traeger had gotten up to 180, think I ended up with a bit of fat out on that 2nd batch. I will write that up separate, it was also a bit of a Hunter brat with 2 parts pork to 1 part venison to 1.6 parts pork fat.

So now I’m looking for a lower temp smoker
Sausage was great, have used for gumbo and cheese trays, kids love it!

Made some Branston Pickle for Christ.as gifts this year. If you’ve been to England, you’ll recognize this ubiquitous brown vegetable chutney that is served with sausages, cheese, meats etc. Indeed, if you ask anyone for a pickle in the UK, this is what they will hand you. I will post a full recipe and notes in a separate thread sometime soon, but saw this thread and wanted to share my most recent canning / pickle project.

First try of Willies seasoning, snack sticks. I really love the flavor, I’m a huge pepperoni fan and this is dang close. I think this may be my keeper flavor!

7.3 lb meat block of which 1480g venison, 400g pork fat, 900g ground beef 80/20, and 650 ml or so ice water. I ended up using more water than expected, 23%.

Some Italian med hot I made last month with sweet onions and green peppers. And a nice coleslaw with apple cider vinegar and a bit of ginger.

And I know this isn’t the drinking thread, but it is 80 F here in Phoenix, so I’m eating this lunch out on the patio with a Bud Lime, and I’m not ashamed!

tarp looking good! My sons love those canned style green beans better than anything, ask for them on birthday meals, great vegetables to can!

RafterW I really love reading this well thought out kinda science based agriculture. I’ve never done it myself, but I find it incredibly interesting. I’m looking forward to hearing how these chicks do and your feed rates, etc! Thx!

calldoctoday nice ribs, but that boule looks even better!

processhead looks and sounds great.

johnsbrewhouse so sorry to hear. Had $3000 of vet bill this week for my 4mo old puppy, but I am lucky she pulled thru a stomach blockage. Your post made me remember I was lucky, and my heart goes out to your family losing a pup.

Grimpuppy great post, thanks for the lessons learned!

HerbcoFood nice looking meal

gus4416 thx Gus! I’ve been reading the gardening threads, some folks grow their own tomatoes and make their own canned tomatoes and sauces, sounds like you do also. I really respect that and wish I could do the hard work on a garden, especially tomatoes. I only have easy citrus trees. Just paid a guy almost $1000 to come 4 times and fumigate over 100 gopher mounds They have driven my garden success to 0%. But I enjoy reading about folks growing and canning, you should post up your wife’s sauce, I’d love to read anything on that!

Dinner last night.
Cooked up some of my sweet Italian brats with spaghetti. Just made a simple red sauce but thought the picture of it cooking with the brats and green peppers looked nice, so here it is:)

An interesting thing, those pink Italian brats… I stuffed these right after some corned beef brats, and even though I ran 6 or 7 slices of bread thru stuffer to clean it out, the wee bit of residual corned beef nitrite left in there ended up giving some cure color to the first 10 or so Italian brats I stuffed. Pretty amazing how little is needed for color…

johnsbrewhouse thx, good looking recipe.