doing some smoking today

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive got 16 sticks of summer sausage made up to do today and two turkeys to brine to do tommarow.

[Bodydoc447]

You are an industrious sort. It about wore me out making/smoking snack sticks last weekend. And that was only about 16 pounds. I figure those summer sausages are about 5 lbs EACH!

Doc

[1874Sharps]

I smoked a deer a while back. It was hard to keep it lit and draw through it, so I went back to cigars. Just kidding! I had no smokehouse so I converted my home made utility trailer into a smokehouse. I call it my Redneck Smokehouse!

[Lloyd Smale]

the casings I use hold about 3 lbs each. I quit doing snack sticks. There alot more work to stuff and i like the summer sausage better and found i gave away about 75 percent of the snack sticks i made and out of the other 25 percent the dog got half of those. Same goes for jerky. I like to make up maybe 20lbs (dry weight) every year but again i prefer the summer sausage and end up giving to much jerky away. I eat alot of summer sausage. I give alot of it away too but make usually 150lbs a year and keep at least a 100 for myself. Its even a bit practical because i can make lunch out of some and some crackers and its excellent sliced and browned in a pan with a bit of butter with eggs for breakfast.
You are an industrious sort. It about wore me out making/smoking snack sticks last weekend. And that was only about 16 pounds. I figure those summer sausages are about 5 lbs EACH!

Doc

[Lloyd Smale]

Now that would hold some sausage but it would be tough to make sausage in as i dont know how youd maitain and regulate tempurature. My smoker is a bout 5 foot tall by 4 foot wide and 2.5 foot deep and i supply it with smoke using a brinkman smoker with a gas burner in it and a pipe to put smoke in the box but i also have two electric elements inside the box to regulate heat and the picture was before i had to wrap it in insulation.. Even at that size it took two elements and the heat from the gas chip burner to get meat above 150 degrees.
I smoked a deer a while back. It was hard to keep it lit and draw through it, so I went back to cigars. Just kidding! I had no smokehouse so I converted my home made utility trailer into a smokehouse. I call it my Redneck Smokehouse!

[Lloyd Smale]

heres mine

[smokeywolf]

Lloyd, that's a real nice setup.

I'm trying to stay off the statins, so I'd have to take a fist full of blood thinners and antioxidants before chowin down on the sausage and eggs braised in butter.

smokeywolf

[MBTcustom]

Makin me hungry!
Is there any way you would consider teaching us the fine art of summer sausage making? How do you mix the fixins?
If its family secret forget I asked, but it never hurts to ask does it?

[44man]

Yeah, nice smoker.
Some of us need help. I guess I didn't use enough fat and you can drive tent stakes with mine.
I just got a flier from Cabelas with all kinds of smokers but can't figure which one to get. One will hold a constant 100* to 275* and is on sale for $179.
Then there are 2 Masterbuilt ones, propane and an electric.
Neither of the ones I now have will get hot enough.

[jonas302]

Mine is an old electric oven I removed the oven element and pluged a stove top element into the wires so it runs off the original t stat a cast iron pan with wood in it sits on the burner its free and very well insulated last weekend was smoked duck yum

[duke76]

Makin me hungry!
Is there any way you would consider teaching us the fine art of summer sausage making? How do you mix the fixins?
If its family secret forget I asked, but it never hurts to ask does it?

Its not hard just takes some time, I usually grind my deer and mix 20%ground pork and use a spice kit from say lems or waltons, then mix the spice with some water and cure(the water makes the spices distribute more evenly and to stuff easier) Dont worry the water disappears then stuff it into summer sausage casings and smoke until the internal temperature is 155 you can also do this in an oven and if you like smoke flavoring you can add liquid smoke and summer sausage casings you can also stuff by hand with some sort of stomper if you dont want to buy a stuffer, but makes it easier I have made 100s of pounds of sausage and like I said it isnt hard just takes alot of time and after you do it you will know why it cost so much to have done lol if you have any questions I would be more than happy to help, I know I'm not Lloyd but I'm sure he does it about the same

[duke76]

Yeah, nice smoker.
Some of us need help. I guess I didn't use enough fat and you can drive tent stakes with mine.
I just got a flier from Cabelas with all kinds of smokers but can't figure which one to get. One will hold a constant 100* to 275* and is on sale for $179.
Then there are 2 Masterbuilt ones, propane and an electric.
Neither of the ones I now have will get hot enough.

I have used the masterbuilt electric ones and they work fine for small batches, I make so much I use a smoker made out of a fuel barrell 300 gallon but the masterbuilt ones will work fine smoke at 225 until internal temp is 155 in the center of it

[Lloyd Smale]

I get all my summer sausage, jerky, snack stick, bratt and italian sausage mixes from here http://www.askthemeatman.com/weekly_special.htm they have the best ive found and its better then my best attemps at doing it myself. As to the pork you want to add at least 2lbs of pork but to 10 lbs of meat. I usually add 2lbs to 8lbs. One of the tricks to summer sauage is a smoker that you can really control the heat with. You need to heat the meat without smoke till it gets up to an internal temp of 100 degrees with a setting of 120 in the box this opens the pours of the meat up to except smoke flavor. If you smoke right away you can get a coating on the casing that wont allow the smoke flavor to penetrate into the meat. . then increase your temp 20 degrees every 2 hours until the meat gets to at least 155 internal. I dont like to go past that as it strarts to dry. Another thing is once you get there you have to stop the cooking. I emerse in cold water or even throw them in the snow bank in the winter until the temp inside gets down to at least 120. then you need to hang at room temp overnight to bloom. You dont ever need to get your smoker any hotter then a 180 degrees when making sausage and if you do youll certainly add to the drying. For a small smoker electric is the way to go. there much more controlable. I had two different propane smokers and neither would maintain temps below about 175 degrees. The gas ones are great for smoking turkeys and roast and jerky but not summer sausage or snack sticks. Make sure if you get an electric one you get one that has a therostatic control. Some are just on or off.

[44man]

Great. I had to use the kitchen oven last time to bring up the internal heat and that ruined it.
Now to figure out how to print Lloyd's page!
Duke, I just make small batches anyway. Sounds like you have a great smoker.
The only use I found for the Big Chief I have is to smoke jerky before using the dehydrator.
I will try again after season with this information.
I did a lot of cold smoking in Ohio, I had a big box with smoke that went 10' to it for hams and bacon but it would not cook smoke.

[Lloyd Smale]

I just won one of those big chefs at a whitetails unlimited baquette. I gave it to my nephew. It was a decent looking smoker but i allready have a small elect one and the big chef wasnt temperature controlable. Just on and off so it didnt do me much good. Im sure though a guy could put a reostat on it to control the heat somehow if not you could buy a reostatic controled electric burner off ebay for a differnt smoker and install it. Fish in the brine overnight so today is smoking trout and salmon day and tommarow the last batch of summer sausage for the year. I think this smoking is just as additctive as casting, ,loading and shooting. By the way the turkerys were fantastic. Best i ever ate.

[44man]

My great thanks to Crabo for being able to E mail me Lloyd's info. For some reason I could not save it.
I ordered the Master Built electric smoker and will give my daughter the others.
The Big Chief does not have enough heat with the small coils to regulate. I put a hole in the top with a grommet for a thermometer and it just never gets hot. I have the insulated blanket and it is no help.
Now it might work to just leave jerky dry in it like Lloyd said.
I don't like the smoke liquid added, real smoke is better and it sure does not last long around here. I swear a whole deer made into jerky would be gone in a week.
I also dry deer meat without seasoning for dog treats---watch your fingers! [smilie=l:

[Lloyd Smale]

kind of laughed at your dog treat thing. Im not a big jerky fan. I love summer sausage and about everything else out of a smoker but i can take or leave jerky. I make probably a deer a year into jerky. Mostly because friends and family like it so i give probably 75 percent of it away. The stuff i keep, probably half gets eaten by my dog. You want to cringe even more. As you probably read on here we do crop damage shooting of deer for about 3 months of the year. We can shoot all the deer we want. This year i shot 62. Theres three of us that do it. My buddy and his brother are the other two. His brother is a real card! 67 year old 120lb hillbilly that still smokes dope and has a beer in his hand by 10 in the morning. He doesnt have a pot to !!! in though and most of his food is based on the venison he takes. He has 3 dogs and cans about 25 deer a year and uses it for dog food!!! Now id give my dog a piece of jerky occasionaly but i sure wouldnt feed him my canned venison!! My smoking season is about at the end. I did about 50 lbs of lake trout yesterday and have one more batch of summer sausage left to do and this morning im making itlalian sausage bratts and will smoke maybe 25 lbs of them. Then i have one more project before retireing the smoker for the year. I bought a ready made kit to make venison hams. Ive never tried it before. Ive got a couple small hind quarters left in the freezer to try it on. Got to agree though pal. You wont find a bottle of liquid smoke in my house or a piece of sausage made in an oven! One more bit of advice. Invest in a good electronic meat temperature probe so you can run the probe through the crack in the door and not have to keep opening the smoker and loosing your heat.

[Lloyd Smale]

Ill give you one more little trick to try with your summer sauage and snack sticks. When you make or buy your mix for spices add about 3/4s of a cup of brown sugar to the mix for every 10lbs of meat. I make it in 12.5 lb batches and add a cup. Start with 3/4s and ajust to your taste. You dont want any more as you dont want it like candy but everyone that trys mine scratches there head trying to figure out what that little hint of taste is. Ive yet to have anyone that didnt try it think it was the best theyve had. I got that trick from a buddy whos grandfather came over from germany and made his living back in the day as a sausage maker. Another thing i do occasionaly to a batch is put a little heat in it. I kind of like things a bit more spicy then others and will make up a batch just for me. For that batch ive found a simple addititive. Montreal steak seasoning. Try 4 tsps of it in a 12 lb batch to start with.

[44man]

Thank you Lloyd. Why do you live so far away?
Yeah, dogs love dried meat and I swear my little one will eat a whole deer non stop! [smilie=s: We buy her chicken and duck jerky tenders too.
Friends come to shoot and she goes nuts over them, getting hugs and kisses, then she comes to me for a treat. Spoiled rotten for sure.

[44man]

My new smoker showed up, only took a few days. I had enough points to reduce the price to $103.
Thing is HEAVY, not out of the box yet and I have to get it in the garage. It is inside my front door now.
I found I can't use chunk wood. I have bags and bags of mesquite, cherry, peach, pear and mulberry wood chunks.
I need to find a way to shred the stuff.
Any ideas?

[Lloyd Smale]

no i still buy my wood chips myself. I at least get a break on them. the local hwd store owner is a freind and he gives them to be by the case at his cost in exchange for a stick of summer sauasge occaisionaly. One thing that i dont know if you know or not though is you have to season that new smoker. Rub it down good inside with vegatable oil and run a load or two of chips through it before you do any meat in it. your just getting yours going and i just came in from putting mine away for the year. I might use it once more if i shot a couple small ones to make hams out of the hind quarters but im sure that will be after deer season some time.

[44man]

no i still buy my wood chips myself. I at least get a break on them. the local hwd store owner is a freind and he gives them to be by the case at his cost in exchange for a stick of summer sauasge occaisionaly. One thing that i dont know if you know or not though is you have to season that new smoker. Rub it down good inside with vegatable oil and run a load or two of chips through it before you do any meat in it. your just getting yours going and i just came in from putting mine away for the year. I might use it once more if i shot a couple small ones to make hams out of the hind quarters but im sure that will be after deer season some time.
Yes, it needs run for 3 hours and then some wood chips at the end. Have to get rid of the oils when it was made.
I was thinking of running my chunk wood over the jointer to get chips. The stick wood can be put through my chipper. Just need to collect the wood.

[Lloyd Smale]

wish i had a chipper!!

[44man]

We get tons of black walnuts and LEM has a nut cracker that will break them. I sent for one. I am tired of nut shells all over the garage when we hammer them on the vise. Nothing better on pumpkin pie!
I have the smoker together and it is heating now.

[Lloyd Smale]

grind them up and sell them for cleaning media!

[just.don]

I crack them with vice grips.
Much less mess, much more usable meat from the nuts.

[44man]

grind them up and sell them for cleaning media!
I would need carbide grinders! [smilie=s:

[Lloyd Smale]

wonder if my meat grider would do it?

[44man]

wonder if my meat grider would do it?
Listen to a squirrel chew them.
I think a huge stone roller might do it! :mrgreen:

[Lloyd Smale]

ya id hate to screw up a 800 dollar grinder making tumbling media i can buy cheap enough at the feed store!

[man.electric]

It's been a while since I have done any smoking. It looks like they have changed them a lot since I was in college.

http://www.willybanjo.com/shop/smoking_supplies/bongs/acrylic_bongs/bubble_bongs/images/main_acrylic_bubble_bong_avabb07.jpg

[smokeywolf]

44man, good on you for giving your best friend natural treats. Our wolfdogs never eat "dog food"; nothing but human grade food.
Dry dog food is not that good for dogs. Their digestive tract does not process grains or starches well. Veterinarians push prepackaged dog food because that's what they learn in the schools that are subsidized by the dog food companies. The wife and I have done thousands of hours of study on dog/wolf physiology and nutrition. I've gotten advice from the biologists/zoologists at the San Diego Zoo, L A Zoo, Santa Barbara Zoo, and the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program at Moorpark College. Raw meat is what's best for your best friend. Next to that is lightly cooked meat. Don't forget the calcium. Give then about a 1 to 10 ratio of calcium to protein (phosphorus). Eggs have nearly that exact ratio if you feed the shell with the liquid chicken part of the egg. Never give a dog an egg without making him eat the shell also.

I'm looking forward to building my own offset smoker from used air tanks. Hoping to make it resemble this:

http://www.horizonbbqsmokersstore.com/servlet/the-378/20%22-Ranger-Backyard-Smoker/Detail

smokeywolf

[Lloyd Smale]

Dont have to worry about that with my dog. You could put a bowl of dog food in the kitchen and it would have dust on it before hed touch it. He eats what i eat.

[44man]

Yeah, the wife hollers at me when I give scraps from the table. Beef hot dogs, fish or hamburger, she says that is people food---well, it is MEAT. My little ones love cheese and she also hollers, she thinks it binds them up but what better way to give them calcium?
My old man was funny when he was alive. He would get a big bowl of ice cream and let the dog eat out of the bowl while he ate. I still remember my mothers steely stare! [smilie=l:

[44man]

I had some trouble with the Master Built. When it got hot, the aluminum panel on the inside of the door expanded and I could not open the door. It caught and bent. It took some work but I got it open and tapped the panel back in place.
I E mailed them and they are sending a new door. I told them it should be OK but they are still sending me one.
That puts them on top as a good company.

[Lloyd Smale]

smoke anything in it yet. Mine was a good little smoker. I havent used it in 2 years though. Since i got the big one built it just sits there.

[44man]

Not yet, have to try some ribs. I think there is one deer shoulder left too.
I keep putting off archery hunting but got 2 stands up. I can't believe the buck rubs already, even seen a scrape. Tracks everywhere.
I just can't get enthused!
I would like to try some deer ribs but the things need boiled to get rid of the fat. Not much left on them for meat.

[44man]

It's been a while since I have done any smoking. It looks like they have changed them a lot since I was in college.

http://www.willybanjo.com/shop/smoking_supplies/bongs/acrylic_bongs/bubble_bongs/images/main_acrylic_bubble_bong_avabb07.jpg
Is that your tree stand smoker? :mrgreen:

[man.electric]

In a previous life that smoked way too much... I count myself lucky to have avoided arrest in my youth and find the world of shooting and boolit casting instead. At the age of stupidity I wouldn't have realized how much a felony record would ruin life for me.

[Lloyd Smale]

im kind of kicking myself right now too. I just picked up all i need to make venison ham. Problem is i dont have any small hind quarters left. Crop damage shooting is done and i cut up all the meat. Ive been bow hunting the last couple nights trying to get one with no luck yet. Sucks to be back to having to earn my deer!!
Not yet, have to try some ribs. I think there is one deer shoulder left too.
I keep putting off archery hunting but got 2 stands up. I can't believe the buck rubs already, even seen a scrape. Tracks everywhere.
I just can't get enthused!
I would like to try some deer ribs but the things need boiled to get rid of the fat. Not much left on them for meat.

[44man]

im kind of kicking myself right now too. I just picked up all i need to make venison ham. Problem is i dont have any small hind quarters left. Crop damage shooting is done and i cut up all the meat. Ive been bow hunting the last couple nights trying to get one with no luck yet. Sucks to be back to having to earn my deer!!
I went out yesterday and seen a bunch of deer, tried to draw on one and no luck pulling the thing back. 10 minutes later another came and I got the bow back but she jumped the string.
I moved the ladder stand around the tree a little for a better angle and the lock part and spring left the binder.
I had to make a new string for another bow, turned it way down and could barely shoot it twice, two years ago I was shooting 82#. Now 58# kills me, looks like I will quit archery, can't afford a crossbow and need a special license anyway.
I could not find a place for my back and shoulder all night! :groner:
Don't get old guys, it is BAAAAD! All your muscles wind up in your belly.

[Lloyd Smale]

I switched to a cross bow last year because of the same thing. My lower back is toast and believe it or not it sure effects your strenght. Here in MI anyone can use them. theres a few more restrictions if you dont have disabled permit but not many. Aint the same as bow hunting but i at least gets me in the woods that time of year.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Just got done smoking and slicing 10-15 lbs of homegrown bacon. It turned out mighty fine and I have another side fo belly meat in the freezer. No bacon shortage here!

[44man]

I switched to a cross bow last year because of the same thing. My lower back is toast and believe it or not it sure effects your strenght. Here in MI anyone can use them. theres a few more restrictions if you dont have disabled permit but not many. Aint the same as bow hunting but i at least gets me in the woods that time of year.
WV does not allow them except for medical reasons.
It is my upper back from an old workplace injury. My left arm goes numb depending on how I hold it. It hurts to turn my head to the left. Pain shoots into my left shoulder. Even driving makes it hard to look left.

[44man]

Just got done smoking and slicing 10-15 lbs of homegrown bacon. It turned out mighty fine and I have another side fo belly meat in the freezer. No bacon shortage here!
Wonderful. Bacon is my failure, I love it more then anything.
Two strips is nuts, it takes a pound to make me happy. Apple smoked is out of this world.

[Moonie]

I've got 3 blown disks in my mid back, no archery for me any longer. I've thought about using a crossbow (my state requires medical reason but I qualify) but honestly I go hunting to enjoy the woods with my sons now.

[44man]

I've got 3 blown disks in my mid back, no archery for me any longer. I've thought about using a crossbow (my state requires medical reason but I qualify) but honestly I go hunting to enjoy the woods with my sons now.
I hate to go to the doctor with the cost and then the price of a good crossbow. Archery is mundane for me with so many kills. I will just wait for gun season.
I was in the yard this morning and my little dog seen a deer across the road I could not see. It ran across in front of us into my yard to feed. I could never shoot the thing. I could never kill a home grown rabbit either. I am soft so need to go where I don't know the deer. Strange how a hunter loves the animals more then the liberal creeps.
I think real hunters are like me. There is a kinship and a prayer for thanks for meat when we kill. Never ask me to raise a goat and cut it's throat, you do it, not me. I am a killer but of the wild. I am a hunter, not a killer.
Am I crazy?

[Lloyd Smale]

nope the nieghbors wife feeds deer and i wouldnt even consider shooting one of the ones hanging around here. Same with the turkeys. Only exception i make is the bear. theres a few small kids living close by and the parents are afraid of the bear and my dog even tends to run after them so they are targets. Same with coyotes