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Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 07:21
by sambal badjak
Nice looking bacons and sausages!

I have a couple of questions after making the smoked/unsmoked sausages and working on my Canadian bacon:

1- Is it necessary to prep cook or fully cook the smoked sausages or could you just cool them down and freeze them and make sure that you heat them to the required IMT when you eat them?

2- Once the sausage is smoked and cooked to the right IMT, could you hang it to dry like I've done with Kabanosy in a different project?

3- What is the relationship between temperature and uptake of smoke? It looks to me that the sausages take up smoke quicker at 40 oC than at 20 oC?
Just trying to figure out how long to smoke my Canadian bacon for as my set up provides quit a light smoke.

4- Total different subject:
How do you all clean your stuffing pipes and stuffers? I find it quite difficult to clean the air valve on the stuffer and the stuffing pipes properly. Could do with some tips here.

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 13:00
by graybeard
I have a LEM stuffer and first I use some food grade plastic rod I got off of Amazon then I turned it on the lathe to push most of the meat out of the tube then I use a stuffing tube cleaning brush I got from the Sausage Maker. If it is difficult for you to get that where you are you could use a baby bottle brush, that's what I did when I was visiting my son and it worked out pretty good.

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 14:11
by Shuswap
sambal badjak wrote:How do you all clean your stuffing pipes and stuffers? I find it quite difficult to clean the air valve on the stuffer and the stuffing pipes properly. Could do with some tips here.
I replaced the acorn nut on the air valve stem with a wing nut - so much easier. I told LEM about that modification and they referred it to their design team. I've been using a long handled spoon to force the remaining meat out of the tube into the casing but Graybeard has me going to the lathe for an upgrade :grin:

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 14:43
by sambal badjak
Thanks Graybeard: I will have to look for a bottle brush. So far I have been using a chopstick wrapped in serviette or towel, but it's a bit of a mission.

Shuswap: So you take the air valve off to clean? Any thing I should look out for when putting it back?
Changing the bolt for a wing nut sounds like a plan.

Thanks :roll:

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 15:03
by Shuswap
sambal badjak wrote:Shuswap: So you take the air valve off to clean? Any thing I should look out for when putting it back?
A long time ago - seems like eons - Duk commented on how he had missed a spot in cleanup to his regret so I started paying closer attention to areas where small amounts of meat can hide in our equipment. The air valve was one as is the ring around the head which holds the air valve. In new equipment it pays to ensure there are no barbs left in the manufacturing process that can snag small amounts of meat or fat.

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 15:40
by el Ducko
Shuswap wrote:I've been using a long handled spoon to force the remaining meat out of the tube into the casing but Graybeard has me going to the lathe for an upgrade :grin:
I went to the lumber store and bought several sizes of dowel, to fit my various stuffer tubes. I sprayed them with several coats of polyurethane , and wash them just like I wash the rest of my equipment.

And, yup, it was the threads on the air valve that I had missed. Now I take it out and wash it every time. Great idea on the wing nut! I'll do it. ...nothing worse than losing that acorn nut, then biting down on a nut, only to find out that it's the wrong kind of acorn!
:mrgreen:

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 13:11
by graybeard
Shuswap that is a great idea on the wing nut. Next time I am out running around I will have to pick up one.

El Ducko, I like the Idea of the wooden dowels I never thought of putting poly on them. I just figured being plain wood it would not be very sanitary. With the poly on there it would work out great. Next time I need some I will just use some scrapes out of the extra pile.

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 15:10
by Shuswap
graybeard wrote:El Ducko, I like the Idea of the wooden dowels I never thought of putting poly on them. I just figured being plain wood it would not be very sanitary.
Duk is a chemical engineer and I am a furniture maker so how far apart can we get when giving adice on equipment. I simply ask how many of the wooden spoons in your kitchen have a coat of poly :shock:

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 15:39
by el Ducko
Shuswap wrote:...how many of the wooden spoons in your kitchen have a coat of poly :shock:
Good point, Phil. Seems like, if you wash 'em in good ol' hot soapy water they should be sanitary enough. We have a friend who insists on using bleach on her wooden cutting board but I confess, I never do.
If it weren't for this annoying rash... (just kidding.)
Duk
:mrgreen:

sanitation

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 19:58
by Shuswap
I keep 2 products at my sausage making bench that get used regularly. A bottle of diluted bleach which I spray on equipment then wipe down with a fresh dishcloth unless the equipment has had direct contact with food, which goes in the sink and washed with Dawn soap. The other is handy wipes that I find easy to use on knives and scissors then rinsed in warm water as I work my way through the process. Yes, CW has made an impression on me about food safety.

Re: sanitation

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 01:05
by el Ducko
Shuswap wrote:...A bottle of diluted bleach... handy wipes...
...great ideas! I'll do that immediately. My clean-freak friend would say that you should bleach-treat anything wooden, even after washing thoroughly. As for me, I ditched my wooden cutting board and bought a plastic one, plus some plastic spoons.
Shuswap wrote:Yes, CW has made an impression...
In Utah's ski areas (especially by those people claiming Swiss-German ancestry), it's called a "sitzmark." Splat!
:mrgreen:

Work With Small Batches

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 14:45
by Shuswap
CW I hope you don`t mind me posting this question in BK. I`m referring to the Goodness Gracious Garlic recipe you posted back in 2012. This is a 10lb recipe and you say: "Grind the meat and then mix in the garlic solution and the remaining spices. Work with small batches, refrigerating the meat at every opportunity." I do recall you saying there are no silly questions in BK :smile:

Somehow I`ve missed the part where you describe breaking down a recipe by "working in small batches". Is it just a matter of treating the 10lbs as, say, 2 - 5 lb batches :?:

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2014 13:33
by graybeard
Well I finally did my cure sausage yesterday. This is the first time I have smoked sausage so it was a learning experience. I let it sit at room temperature for an hour then into the smoker heated to 130. I smoked it using maple for 5 hours not knowing how much smoke flavor there was going to be. I raised the smoker 2 degrees every 20 minutes and it was finished in 7 hours. Since this is the first time doing this is this a normal time frame? It took an hour to finish the last 4 degrees, is this normal? I had the smoker set to go no higher than 170. They turned out pretty good for the first ones I have done.

Image

Image

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2014 15:16
by sambal badjak
I like the look of those, Graybeard!

I leave it to the others to answer your smoking time questions. I had a total different issue when smoking my canadian bacon. I use a proQ csg and the thing just didn't want to light. In the end I got so frustrated that I placed the whole csg on the hot plate and now it smoked! And how! Normally a fully loaded csg gives smoke for about 10 hours and this time all had gone up in smoke in less than 1.5 hours!
I need to rethink my smoking strategy

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2014 16:33
by grasshopper
Graybeard! When you can see the white fat to the outside, like in yours. The heat process was just right. I think they are great looking. Now for the taste. I have a masterbuilt smoker 2 generation and smoking for that length of time would be to much. All smokers are different, mine is to air tight. Smoke stays in there, unless I have a windy day.