Christmas ham brined in celery juice powder for cure.

16oz salt
8oz honey (home harvested)
8oz brown sugar
1oz
Celery juice powder
8lb fresh pork leg (home slaughter)

My pork was still frozen so I didn’t inject the brine right away. Brined min 1 day for every 2lb of meat plus an extra day because it was frozen when I started. I then forgot to revisit injecting the brine afterwards, so that was a mistake because the cure didn’t fully penetrate.

Cut crosshatch in fat cap. Slathered a coat of glaze.
Cooked in oven in bag at 325 until internal temp reached 130. Folded down bag and began glaze every 5 mins.

Glaze was 1 part pan drippings, 1 part honey, 1 healthy tablespoon of Koops Arizona heat mustard

Little pig got his hip dislocated in the pig pile, so rather than let him get pushed around and suffer we put him in the freezer.

He was rather small 5 month old American guinea hog, so he mostly went to sausage. Perfect opportunity to give my new Walton’s 11 stuffer a go.

2 batches of this recipe as base and added some onion and garlic pwd as well as dash of mace. Used 32mm natural hog casings. It’s more breakfast sausage flavor than a traditional brat

My meat block was from all parts of the animal. Shoulder, belly, loin, rear.

5-lbs ground pork, fine grind
4-tsp sugar
1-tbsp ground coriander
1-tbsp ground sage
1-tsp paprika
1-tsp cayenne pepper
2-tsp dried rosemary
1-tbsp dry mustard
1-tsp pepper
1-tsp nutmeg
5-tsp salt

Saturday was a good day out on the lake with my son and some friends

No action on the jigs, but our group was able to take home 9 northern off the tip ups.

It’s been a long week of late nights after work to get these 3 American Guinea Hogs all processed, but boy is it worth it!

I think we have about 60lb each of bacon, ground pork, brat links, brat burgers, 6 flats of pint size jars of lard, and maybe another 2 of the clear cambro bins full of fat that needs to be bagged. Oh and 2 more bellies that I’m trying to decide if they’re too fatty for bacons. You can see some bellies on the freezer are rediculously fatty.

Speaking of turkeys, finished processing our last 3 last night.

Life happened and we got busy so we didn’t get them processed while they still fit in the plucker, so we had to hand pluck, but that wasn’t so bad.

7 turkeys ( and 2 ornery geese) went to freezer camp this year turkeys were around 28lb each

There are some things that I could get online that may be a few dollars cheaper, but I generally prefer to order from Walton’s. That’s because I know my purchases not only help these giveaways but also so many other organizations like pass it on, Faith builders, back country, pheasants forever, etc. Our purchases also keep this community alive which has helped so many people including myself put safe and delicious food on the table and in the pantry.

Departing Contestant, I don’t really want to start an argument so I’ll just leave this here and move on. There are some misconceptions about what people are calling celery juice powder. What Walton’s and other places sell is more than just dehydrated and ground up celery. https://waltons.com/celery-juice-powder-5-oz/ is actually “VEG Stable - 506” a cultured product that I believe to be produced by https://floridafood.com/products/vegstable-cure/ which has standardized nitrite levels in their product.

The alternative method is great for families like mine that have sensitivities to instacure and/or red dye. I have used this product. When used per the mfg reccomendations, my ham looked pinkish like you would think a ham should, but I did make one and the very center was frozen so the brine didn’t penetrate and was a distinct color difference and did not taste hammy. The part that didn’t “cure” was more like pork chop flavor and color.

Recommended usage rates using the Veg Stable 506 AKA https://waltons.com/celery-juice-powder-5-oz/

• Bacon – 0.53% meat weight – 120ppm ingoing • Hot Dogs/Sausage – 0.69% meat weight– 156ppm ingoing • Beef Jerky/Sticks – 0.69% meat weight– 156ppm ingoing • Hams– 0.8 – 0.86% meat weight – 180 - 195ppm ingoing • Corned Beef/Pastrami - 0.8 – 0.86% meat weight – 180 - 195ppm ingoing • Dry Cured Bacon – 0.88% meat weight – 200ppm ingoing • Dry Cured Ham – 2.77% meat weight – 625ppm ingoing

Was given an antique honey extractor just in time for late summer harvest.

Derusted, painted, and coated with epoxy.

Had one really productive hive this year that I was able to split and still pull 6-7 gal of honey.

I’ve been sand bagging these forums for a while from Beaver Dam, WI. Hog processing is starting soon so its time got get active and put the information to use. I’ve done some domestic rabbit butchering before and harvested some deer, which produced the usual products. I’m very interested in getting into traditional meat preservation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Departing Contestant, I don’t really want to start an argument so I’ll just leave this here and move on. There are some misconceptions about what people are calling celery juice powder. What Walton’s and other places sell is more than just dehydrated and ground up celery. https://waltons.com/celery-juice-powder-5-oz/ is actually “VEG Stable - 506” a cultured product that I believe to be produced by https://floridafood.com/products/vegstable-cure/ which has standardized nitrite levels in their product.

The alternative method is great for families like mine that have sensitivities to instacure and/or red dye. I have used this product. When used per the mfg reccomendations, my ham looked pinkish like you would think a ham should, but I did make one and the very center was frozen so the brine didn’t penetrate and was a distinct color difference and did not taste hammy. The part that didn’t “cure” was more like pork chop flavor and color.

Recommended usage rates using the Veg Stable 506 AKA https://waltons.com/celery-juice-powder-5-oz/

• Bacon – 0.53% meat weight – 120ppm ingoing • Hot Dogs/Sausage – 0.69% meat weight– 156ppm ingoing • Beef Jerky/Sticks – 0.69% meat weight– 156ppm ingoing • Hams– 0.8 – 0.86% meat weight – 180 - 195ppm ingoing • Corned Beef/Pastrami - 0.8 – 0.86% meat weight – 180 - 195ppm ingoing • Dry Cured Bacon – 0.88% meat weight – 200ppm ingoing • Dry Cured Ham – 2.77% meat weight – 625ppm ingoing

Jonathon said in Meatgistics Episode: Playing Possum:

FYI, dont look in this one for the super secret thing…it doesn’t make an appearance because of how fat/wide I have gotten. Sorry!

*** I was wrong, it does appear in this!

Jonathon The battery powered vac sealer?

Good N You I have to agree with Dave in AZ, you will still get a pinkish product even if you use a veg cure like the Celery Juice Powder which has a brown color. This celery juice powder is what you would use if you wanted to cure without using the pink cure, but you would still get a pinkish product like the commercial “nitrite -free hotdogs” (note: the nitrite-free hotdogs typically have celery juice powder in their ingredients)

wvotrfan Just imagine how much more lucky it would be if it was orange. You kill way more deere!

Jonathon That was nice of him to let you use his fish for the picture! lol bahahaha

salmonmaster A hat with your user handle custom embroidered is your reward when you reach 500 posts. You can choose from a few options the color and design…but of course orange is the best option!

Bob Stehlik yeah, I was trying to hold out also, but we harvest our bacon and brat crop (this year it was 3 hogs) while my workplace is shutdown between Christmas and New Year. So I couldn’t wait any longer. Would have been nice to get some breakfast patties stored up, but a few days of getting ready to processing pork and another week or so of making the products is exhausting and I didn’t want to drag it out any more. Of the 3 hogs I saved a few bellies for bacon, 1 shoulder for pulled pork, we ground the meat, and rendered a bunch of fat into lard and the rest of the fat was cubed, packed, and froze for hunter friends later this year.

We have something like 50lb worth of patties made using this patty maker and seasoned with Excalibur #1503 season I picked up from an out of business store. I’ll say I’m not a fan of the 1503, it doesn’t have that quintessential brat flavor profile us Midwesterners would expect. Its not a bad flavor, in my opinion it needs the sage. The wife and kids liked the test sample so we kept it as is and made patties of it, but next time we cook some up I’ll add other seasonings.

Bob Stehlik I think this is what you are looking for. https://waltons.com/2-1-2-in-quick-sausage-patty/
Not in yet, and they need to update the description too.

processhead said in Freezer labels:

I would really like to find blank labels so I can print my own, with the pack date and product information.

Ditto, Jonathon If it could be a blank sheet of freezer grade adhesive and then I/we can print what I want and cut to size for that particular product.

Deepwoodsbutcher
Brenmar
ScaleLabel.com