Creating a group for every brand of smoker, would be awesome, but not sure that you want to really have that many groups. Rather than being brand or model specific, what do you think about grouping the smokers into similar categories because the methods for smoking in each can be very different and some methods are tailored to specific styles of smoker.

I could see leaving the PK-100 and other smokers that Walton’s sells in a separate group, but for the rest of the smokers grouping by smoker type might be a little more valuable.

just a rough draft of what the groups could look like:

High-End Electric (Pro Smoker, CookShack, Smokin-It, SmokinTex, etc.)
Bargain Electric - (Masterbuilt, Smoke Chef, Smoke Hollow, Big Chief, etc.)
Wood/Charcoal (Oklahoma Joe, Weber, Pit Barrel, etc.)
Ceramic (Big Green Egg, Kamado Joe, Broil King, etc.)
Pellet (Traeger, Green Mountain, Pit-Boss, Grilla, etc.)

No offense intended to the bargain electrics, but the higher end electric smokers are definitely different beasts from the bargain smokers.

Thank for the acknowledgement! I originally found Walton’s Inc and started ordering my meet supplies well before this. The earliest receipt that I could find in my records was from February 2014, but I think I had some orders prior to that that I didn’t save.

I initially found Walton’s Inc in my search for the Excalibur Smokehouse BBQ Seasoning (which is still my favorite all-around BBQ Seasoning) and have been ordering all kinds of stuff from seasonings to equipment.

I am looking forward to the new grinders and mixers that you have coming!

Hopefully my family can harvest some deer this year to use all this great stuff!

NDKoze

cdavis Yeah, I just get crazy busy and don’t have time to go to my favorite forums. I am actually technically a Moderator on the Smokin-It f***m, but haven’t been out there for awhile now either.

I still love my Smokin-It smoker, but have since been using my Grilla Pellet Poopers more than the trusty Smokin-It #3. I did use it this past weekend though in combination with my Grilla Chimp to get all of that country style sausage done and it worked great as usual.

The one tip that I will give you regarding the Jerky Dryer is to not put that on until your smoke phase is done because the excess air will just blow all of that smoke out of the cooking chamber and the excess oxygen will most likely result in your wood catching fire. I usually smoke for about 2-3 hours and then put the dryer on.

Hopefully this helps.

Just a quick follow-up here. We had a very successful sausage weekend and the Krautwurse turned out excellent!

We ended up using 6lbs of kraut to a 35lb meat block. We did saute the kraut as suggested in this thread and that seemed to be effective. I did also reduce the Tender Quick amount from 9.8 ounces to 8.8 and it turned out really well. We will definitely be making this again with a few small changes:

1. I will use more kraut. There was good kraut flavor, but it could have had more. I will use at leave 1 pound per every 5 pounds if not slightly more.
2. I might reduce the salt just a little bit more. This wasn’t bad, but I might cut it down another .5-1.0 ounce.

The one thing that I will caution anyone who tries this is that you should expect the smoking time to be a little longer (or at least it was in my experience). I had some regular sausage in the smoker with the Krautwurst batch (same recipe except no kraut) and the Krautwurst took quite a bit longer to get the temp and color that we like to get because of the inherent extra moisture that these rings had versus our traditional sausage.

But, in general, it turned out AWESOME!

I agree with what Kyle said above. I would wait to add the seasoning for all of the reasonings that he said.

I have ground and let my meat block sit overnight MANY times, but never mixed any of the seasonings until I was ready to mix.

I daily only use ECA for Summer Sausage and I love it for that. I don’t like it as much in snack sticks.

Dang, I missed my entry for today. I bet that would have been the one.

KnucklHed BBQ

KnucklHed BBQ said in breakfast sausage:

doc_craig I’ve used the Holly Regular breakfast sausage seasoning and friends & family love it in links or patties.
I’d recommend mixing up a 1lb batch per the directions and fry up a patty and then adjust up or down from there.

I’ve got written down in my notes that I liked the flavor at 10 grams of seasoning per lb, that would make the 1/2lb pkg that it comes in season 22.4lbs of meat (the directions would be 8.96 grams per lb)

FYI - I thinks it’s always a good idea to fry up a test patty before you commit to stuffing or packaging, and for some reason I find that you always want the patty to taste a slight bit saltier than you really want if you’re making links, I find that the perfect patty usually makes kind of a boring link, dunno why tho…

Best of luck!

+1 Knucklehead

I too have found that when I make patties they should taste a little too salty. After stuffing them in hot casings and smoking they always taste perfect. If the pre-stuffed patty tastes just right, then I know the stuffed/smoked sausage will be too light on the sausage.

I don’t have an explanation either. Maybe Austin or John will have an explanation unless it is just you and I that experience this

Another thing you can do when cold smoking to keep the liquid out is to fill/freeze 1 or 2 liter soda bottles with water. This keeps the moisture in the bottles and not in the smoking chamber.

Just installed the app. I’ll be checking it out later tonight.

It’s awesome to see you guys always introducing new things and staying up-to-date on the trends.

Yeah, I think they used some Big Green Eggs as well as some others. I went to it twice and they had several different types of smokers running at the one that I went to.

It was a really cool fun course/day and I hope they bring it back again.

They used to have a BBQ Bootcamp that they did in the summer where you were able to attend a bunch of sessions and then have a huge feast of a variety of BBQ foods at the end of the camp. I haven’t seen them do this for the past couple of years though.

Any tips on how tight the burper should be? I had a lot of problems with this the last time too stuffing snack sticks.

I typically screw in far enough so that the burping plate (not sure what it is called) can go up and down about an 1/8". Is this not enough?

I daily only use ECA for Summer Sausage and I love it for that. I don’t like it as much in snack sticks.

I agree with what Kyle said above. I would wait to add the seasoning for all of the reasonings that he said.

I have ground and let my meat block sit overnight MANY times, but never mixed any of the seasonings until I was ready to mix.

cdavis Yeah, I just get crazy busy and don’t have time to go to my favorite forums. I am actually technically a Moderator on the Smokin-It f***m, but haven’t been out there for awhile now either.

I still love my Smokin-It smoker, but have since been using my Grilla Pellet Poopers more than the trusty Smokin-It #3. I did use it this past weekend though in combination with my Grilla Chimp to get all of that country style sausage done and it worked great as usual.

The one tip that I will give you regarding the Jerky Dryer is to not put that on until your smoke phase is done because the excess air will just blow all of that smoke out of the cooking chamber and the excess oxygen will most likely result in your wood catching fire. I usually smoke for about 2-3 hours and then put the dryer on.

Hopefully this helps.

Another thing you can do when cold smoking to keep the liquid out is to fill/freeze 1 or 2 liter soda bottles with water. This keeps the moisture in the bottles and not in the smoking chamber.

Dave in AZ

Hi Dave, you can do jerky and sticks in the Smokin-It smokers and they turn out awesome. You just need to have/use a Jerky fan to remove the excess moisture.

I smoked 120 pounds of country style sausage through my smoker this past weekend and used my jerky dryer. You can buy the dryer from Smokin-It (that is what I did) or there are several DIY options on the Smokin-It forums as well.

Jonathon I will check the alignment over Easter weekend.

I don’t really use the stuffer that much. I would say 3-4 times per year. Probably around 300-400 pounds pushed through it per year.

What type of lube should I get? Any suggestions?

I will check on the piston rod as I can see where that could be an issue. This seems like a likely cause since I am not seeing any indication of gear damage.

I will take some pictures too.

We were processing at my parent’s house and I left the stuffer down there since I figured I just needed a new gearbox, and I won’t be back until Easter most likely. But, I am glad that I posted here before ordering the gearbox as your suggestions seem like they might help diagnose the issue prior to having to order any parts.

So, I will check all of these great suggestions that you have made and update this post with what I find.