I just looked at the recipe and saw Rusk on the ingredient list. It looks like a bread type filler possibly for moisture retention. Any suggestions for substitutions or should I just leave it out? I have no idea where to get it in the states but I did find a recipe for it.

Recently I was at my sister's house and she gave me some commercially made Maple Apple Chicken sausage to try. Surprisingly, it was good. Normally I enjoy the traditional fresh sausage recipes that I find on this site since they are much better than anything purchased in the store. She wondered if t...

Darn it. My sister and I just finished putting up 75 quarts of sliced and 27 pints of Bread and Butter Pickles. If I had seen this before we started I think I would have reserved a few whole pickles for just such a treat. It has everything good. Pickles, hotdogs, Corndog breading and deep fried good...

I just had 2 hogs butchered and am going to do my own bacon. I was looking at CW's Son's of Bees Bacon recipe and noticed that the #1 cure amount was incorrect. For a 25 lb belly it calls for 1/4 cup #1 cure which is about 72 grams or 397ppm well over the 120 ppm allowed. My question is for 25 lb, h...

I bought the ham from an established butcher...but I suppose something could have gone wrong on his end. I guess we will see if it is a recurring problem as I am going to thaw a ham I made for myself and a friend that I cured a couple hams for is going to thaw one of his. Christmas dinner may be gre...

Recently, I cured a ham for my sister using Chuckwagon's brine/injection method. It is a whole ham that after I finished in smoke I cut into 2 portions (butt and shank). She cooked one piece and it was fine. The other piece she noticed a black spot in the meat. It's not near the bone so I don't thin...

OFS Butterbean...OFS. You are a true patriot and hero to those who are placed in harms way. I salute you sir.

The hams are done. Five days in the brine. One finished in the oven at about 250 degrees F. Until an internal temp of 150 degrees F. The other was smoked 6 hours and finished in the oven also. It took all night to get them done but it was well worth it. The small tastes that I had were delicious. I ...

By doubling the brine, do you mean volume or cure and salt? I did double the volume keeping the cure and salt double also. I needed that much to cover the darn things. They are quite large. Unfortunately, the hams don't belong to me. A friend from work knows that I smoke things and make sausage so h...

I have two hams that I am making according to CW's Hobble Creek Recipe. They have been in the pickle about 4 days. They are 25 and 27 lbs each. I pumped each ham with brine. Do they need to be removed from the brine and finished? How long should they be in the smoke? I can't wait to try them.

Well I just finished pumping and putting Hamilton's (the hog's name...I didn't name him) hams in the brine. It was actually much easier than I thought once I figured out the brine formula. The hams were 25.5 and 27 lbs. I did notice that they wanted to float in the brine so I weighted them down (lik...

Hey CW, thanks for posting your ham recipe. I can't wait to try it. I have one of those huge ice chests sitting in my living room full of ice and two bags of what I can only assume are hams and bellies. I guess I have my work cut out for me in the next few days. Things have been busy here. I've been...

This is happening at the right time. I have a friend at work that knows I make my own sausages and he is slaughtering a hog this weekend. I have been asked to cure the belly to make bacon and process the hams. I don't know how he wants the hams done so I am going to suggest CW's ham recipe to start....

Yee Haw!!!! Count me in. I've been wanting to try most of the things on the list. I can't wait!

Like Carpster, I'm just getting around to making the Kabanosy and I have some questions. I was not able to use my smoker to smoke or finish the sausage since it's been about -15f here and I didn't think I would be able to get enough heat to do any good. Therefore, I used the oven and mixed in some l...