GWG8541 I’ve gone through 2 30oz containers and just ordered my third of the Excalibur steak and roast rub. Best combo of SPG and the right coursesness. Love it!!!

Hey guys, been a minute!!! Dropping in to order some steak spice and thought I’d see what’s going on in Meatgistis Land…
I’ve owned and destroyed ever size mixer know to man. Even had a welder reinforce some of the parts to no avail.
If you’re putting cure in the mix for ANYTHING you’re making just save your pennies, troll facebook marketplace and the auction site, find a closing grocery store or pizza joint and get a Hobart A120 mixer. They are designed for the stress of the restaurant business are are durable enough to last with knuckleheads like me running the snot out of them. Game changer for our entire operation.
Hope everyone is well, FL is great but not processing just feels wrong…
Joe Hell
PapaSop
twilliams
Jonathon Tremblay
Tex_77

I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to Jon and Austin for sending me a custom Team Blue Walton’s hat with my handle right on the side!!!
The relocation to FL and job change has really put a dent in my hobby time but I hope I’ve helped some folks along their journey. Certainly unexpected but much appreciated!!! Love this group!

processhead Just take a picture with your phone and email it to yourself, then save and upload. That’s easier for me.

Joseph 0 Back to the question at hand…I picked up a 10x8 walkin cooler and we put it on a cement slab outside. I run a 15k window AC unit with a coolbot controller. Works awesome, I put metal shelves on one side and we found an old fire escape ladder that we cut to make what looks like monkey bars. So we have the “ladder” running across the ceiling and set up 4 gambrels for deer, no problem, didn’t budge. I’ll see if i can dig up some pics. I had some on here before it got updated, i’m sure my instagram still has them. @black_run_bbq

PapaSop Hey buddy, been a minute!!!
I like the 6x10 bags for sticks-i put 6 roughly 6" sticks in each one…don’t want to give away too many at one time!!! The resealable bags are cool but too pricey for me.
10x10 for sausage-easily fit 4 maybe 5 in each bag, perfect for one family meal.
When I was trying to decide what size, ebay has some folks that sell 10 or 25 bags for next to nothing. Once I figured it out, I ordered cases from Waltons-better price than most of the other restaurant and processing sites.
Couple tips:

• keep a paper towel handy and keep the opening where you want to seal dry, just goes smoother.
  -don’t overfill the bags, just makes bad seals
  -make sure the bag opening is flat and lined up “square” even with each other, no wrinkles…the wrinkles will leak
  -freeze the sausage a bit first. They need to be stiff enough not to squish them. Don’t over freeze they will won’t come together to reduce air gaps in the bags.

Hope this helps…stay well!!!

I get boneless pork butts from Restaurant Depot. I buy 200# at a time. I grind and vac seal in 5 or 10 # bags. Works great. We also pack chunks of venison in 5# bags as we debone so it’s easy to defrost and make 25 or 50# batches.

I only grind once through 3/8 plate but I like it chunky, then mix and stuff. When I do hot dogs we grinds 3x. Key to regrinding is cold meat. We grind, spread on a sheet tray and put it in the freezer to stiffen it up and put your grinding head in the freezer too. Keep it as cold as possible. You and the grinder to grind not smear.

gus4416 8H

Well my old NY crew was hard at it this past weekend as you can see by the picture. Got 9 deer off a single push. Puts the body count at 22 for the season. Our deer management area has a huge county park and conservative landowners that don’t allow hunting turns this spot into brown gold!
And they still have tags to fill and I’m excited to see the next generation joining the fun!

This isn’t an easy answer… there is no real good way to keep them linked other than putting them into a “globe”. Jon did a video and check out sausage linking on YouTube too. Best way I’ve found to get consistent is to use a sharpie on the stainless table and put 4 marks 6” apart. Twist every other link. If u want to hang them to smoke then use twine or zip ties to hold the link. Make sure u post some pics! Good luck.

JohninPa Lots of opinions here on this issue. Ive always done 50/50. My brother does 60 venison to 40 pork. He likes a drier texture similar to ring bologna. I like the juicer smaller snack sticks with a good snap. 50/50 will let you stretch out the venison too if you don’t have a great year. Pick one and try it. Doubt you’ll go wrong regardless. Post some pics!

spangler2k3 I do this with breakfast and chili dogs. I smoke for 2hours but I always thermal process in a water bath to cook through. From my experience I think…you’d be okay but make sure you grill them to 165F. I like to use the water bath, yes directly into the turkey fryer with water at 170F until the reach 153F then shower with cold water. I think it keeps them moist when you grill and you don’t need to kill them on the grill and break the skins if you’re not careful.

deanlorensen I’d take a look at the coolbot. It runs a large window air conditioner lower than it should go. There are at storeitcold.com. I didn’t get all the compressor and so on, I just bought the walkin that was in good shape 10’x7’x9’ and i have no problem running it with 4 deer in it at 38F when it was 65F outside during archery. The key is the door frame and the corners, all the restaurant supply guys say there are the hardest to get. You may be able to pick up the walls on the cheap to match your door. I cut the hole in ours and I’m no electrician but it took about 10 minutes to get it set up. I haven’t set up the wifi but the idea of being able to turn it on while you’re in the field and cool it off before you get the deer back is pretty cool. I use a 12k old school beast of an AC unit. So much easier than dealing with all the parts and paying a tech to come out for a one off service call unless you have a buddy…
I was in the restaurant business and they were always having issues if you don’t run them on a regular basis. If you just planning on using it for deer season i’d go with the AC unit, you can scoop an old on up on CL for $100 ish and the coolbot is like $300 just googled it and found one at keg factory. I’d also look on their facebook page they usually have some special deal going on. If not call the order in and ask for a coupon…never hurts
You can see in the pic I set up rolling metro shelves on one side for storage and we used an old fire escape to make a rack to hang 4 gambrels off of. You can zoom in on it in the back, also watch the coolbot videos on their website or youtube. It really does work well.
Works great and everyone is jealous. Plus you can get your buddies to bring 12 packs to store their deer in your cooler!!

spangler2k3 deanlorensen I do literally everything 50/50 boneless pork butt from Restaurant Depot or Costco to venison, literally everything…sticks, brats, breakfast, all of it! I do use 1oz of carrot fiber to 20# in sticks. I don’t have pork fat readily available but lucky enough to have some big box retail relatively close. I’ve never had an issue with the 50/50. Now I will say i only grind once on the small plate the #22 butcher series has no issue with it and I grind both pork and venison on the same plate. I live in a very simple world…I’ve stopped over-complicating everything and it makes for a much easier and fun process that ANYONE can help do.

Mschmidt Trust us, everyone on here agrees the 11 is a great piece and really you’ll have to reload a maximum of 2 times for a 25 pound batch. Its not a big deal and you made the right choice! You’ll love how the brats and bags fill off the big horn. We try to share not only the how but also the why. I’ve been at this for decades, and between the collection of knowledge and experience on this board I’d say we’ve been there and made that mistake! This is by far the best, most open and honest group. We aren’t afraid to say we’ve made mistakes that cost time and money from equipment to spices, to processing procedures, we’re just trying to flatten the learning curve so you don’t have make every mistake we’ve made! I see first timers posting pics of very successful processing. If I didn’t have my family experience I wouldn’t have half the knowledge I do now. I’ve learned a LOT from the folks on this forum. Good people for sure!! Can’t wait to see it in action!!

spangler2k3
Very cool, Millville PA native here… now in south FL…

Mschmidt If you’re doing fresh sausage or bratwurst then the 26 is the right tool. If you’re doing snack sticks say 19mm or 21mm then the 11 is the right tool. The 26 had a large diameter and spreads the pressure out too much making it hard to crank with small diameter casings and meat with cure in it. The 11 had the dual speed “up” so it goes quick, you’ll learn to make balls and drop them in the stuffer to quick reload. The 11 is the most versitile stuffer out there, trust me we’ve busted them all and had to go to a hydraulic because we do 19mm sticks with cure and cheese, the 26 will never survive nor will or cranking shoulder! Good luck and make sure to post pics!

I never thermal process sticks while smoking them. I smoke below 150F until they have the color I like-nice deep cherry color using the smoked collagen 19mm casings.
Then into water bath to cook to 155F then shower with cold water. I don’t get dry sticks, I don’t get dry chewy skins. Been doing it tho way for decades.

Jonathon MEAT HACK UPDATE…
Boy did I screw up… pics look good and we froze some for 2 hours then sealed and it worked great…but… I left the other #75 in the deep freezer overnight and they filled with frost…. So we cut the bags off ALL of them, Re-bagged them and vacuum sealed. Won’t make that mistake again!!! That took some time but I was running the smoker for breakfast sausage and the chili dogs so I had some time to kill.

Jonathon I take them off the sticks and dip them in. Just wanted to show you no bags needed!!