Did some wings on the Pitts & Spitts and then charred a bit on my gasser.

American Wagyu Pichana. Local grocery did a pre-order sale for $7.99/lb. Grabbed a few.

Haven’t seen a $.99/lb butt sale lately and with all the Holiday cooking I have not made sausage for a bit. While at Costco noticed their boneless butts were back down to the regular price of $1.99/lb AND happened to find two 2-packs that came to almost exactly 25lb. Destiny.

Should have paid more attention but when taking out of fridge today to start cutting up I realized one pack had bones - even though sold as boneless. Jerks. Anyways, since you can’t get hi-temp Whiz I used 2.5 hi-temp cheddar and 25lb pork butt.

And will say it sure is nice to be able to use the back patio as a fridge again to chill grinder head and stuffer, meat block after grind, sausage mix after filling stuffer, etc. Thinking I may hang these outside tomorrow to freeze before cutting and vac sealing.

I have a few co-workers that subtlety bring up the topic of my smoked beef jerky fairly often. One of them is not so subtle and will be in town (Chicago) from NY this week. So when I was last at Costco I grabbed a few packs of eye of round. This is one time I don’t mind the “mechanically tenderized” beef from Costco as I figure it helps slices absorb more seasoning.

Sliced it all up on Monday eve and and split into 4 x 4-1/3lb piles. I used PS Seasoning Sweet & Hot on 3 of them and PS Maple Jalapeno on 1 of them (each seasoning pack covers 5lbs so wanted to try a bit stronger flavor). More for my own recall I had my slicer dial set to 10 for 1/4" but seemed a tad thicker than normal.

This morning (Wednesday) I laid the Sweet & Hot out on my 6 PK100 racks and as you can see by last one it just barely fit. I patted it all dry with paper towel to help speed the drying along.

Currently running in my PK100 at 150F with vents 90% closed for 1 hour. Then will bump up to 160F and add some Cherry smoke and open vents up.

On my last jerky thread I mentioned that I rarely pick up the “sweet” in a recipe over the smoke. twilliams mentioned he often uses his PK (big brother to mine) for jerky without any smoke with great results. Based on that, I plan to tone way down on the sawdust compared to normal. Hoping for more a “hint” of smoke this time.

The Maple Jalapeno batch all fit on the top rack of my Pitts & Spitts Maverick 1250. They recently posted the controller commands to set the smoker low-point to 140F vs previous 160F. So currently running it at 140F and will for a couple couple hours. The convection of a pellet smoker seems to cook MUCH faster than my PK100 so will just bump it up a bit as need till I hit 170F or so.

So no matter how much sausage, BBQ, bacon, or jerky I give to friends and neighbors, they ALL say that these smoked Cheez-Its are the best thing I make. It is kind of like Chex-Mix in theory and they are fantastic.

I basically make 3 Costco sized (48oz) boxes at a time with them split evenly between two hotel pans.

Recipe is:
2/3c Avocado/Olive Oil
1/3c Kikkoman Soy Sauce
3 TBSP Hidden Valley Ranch Powder (reg or spicy)
1 TBSP Garlic Powder
1 TBSP Onion Powder
1 TBSP Black Pepper
3 TBSP McCormick Honey Sriracha Seasoning (found at Sam’s club)

The Honey Sriracha is the wildcard and can be a swapped for anything you like. Have done Weber Garlic Jalapeno, BBQ rubs, etc. Just watch salt content. The rest is the “base” of the recipe.

Just combine the liquids and pour over Cheez-Its stirring to coat evenly. Then mix all dry ingredients and sprinkle over Cheez-Its and toss to combine (do this in 2-3 batches).

Then I smoke at 200F for 2 hours stirring every 20 min or so.

First butt I’ve cooked vs turned into sausage in some time. Sales lately have been on 2-packs and since I only need 3 to do 25lb sausage I hade this one left over. Did it overnight and is now resting in foil. Will pull it for some lunch in a bit.

Also funny how small a single 9lb butt looks on my smoker!

No complaints from me!

RafterW That beaut of a breakfast sandwich reminded me of this monstrosity I made Friday night after a few beers. Like a lower class version of yours LOL.

Just some grilled hanger steaks.

After a day of making jerky l, threw a small eye of round roast on my pellet smoker at 170F till it hit 123F. Sliced up for roast beef sandwiches. Usually use my deli slicer after chilling it to make it very thin but was hungry and lazy. So just used a knife.

Some potato and cheese pierogi. Oddly no kielbasa as was for my wife and daughter. Wife is vegetarian and daughter is 80% one.

And here I am just using a bamboo skewer and piece of paper towel.

Am typing without thinking. My thought was to lower mixer legs and put it on a cutting board or something if the maxed legs cause me any issues.

Denny O The legs are just about maxed out so figured if there is any stability issues I could split the diff between raising grinder and lowering mixer.

bocephus Less that it would seem I have 2 buddies that go in on the pallets with me so we split. Also “sell” some bags to other local friends that need them. We tend to order well before we actually need to so usually have a large surplus.

Denny O said in Best pellets for smoking in AmazeN or cold smoke generator?:

I’ve been using “Lumber Jack” pellets. 40 lb bag from $7 best sale to $11 everywhere around here.

Wait you are finding 40lb bags for $7-11? Locally Farm and Fleet sells Lumber Jack 20lb bags for $11 which is pretty good. I order pallets from factory and end up paying $14-ish per 40lb bag including the shipping to my house. Last order was $860 total for 1.2 tons (60 x 40lb bags).

gus4416 No. A small local grocery chain near me sells Duroc belly, ribs, and butts, in cryo. Prices on belly is like $3.99 so cheaper than Costco. This was a 5lb piece but they also sell them whole that I’ve made bacon with.

Roast Duroc Pork Belly

Bob Stehlik Been trying to undo what being at home so much during Covid did to me with some keto, so the beer of choice has been Michelob Ultra unfortunately!

Some garden grown jalapeños, cream cheese, and applewood smoked bacon thrown on my smoker.