AW/SS3 - Survival of the Fattest

caliking

I'm beat. The first of a few types of sausage turned out. The rest will be done tomorrow.  We noshed well on some sampler sausage patties and brisky courtesy of @The Cen-Tex Smoker and the dishwasher. Bread turned out decently too (50% rye sourdough).

The win was making Scott1 (@pigfisher 's fishing buddy) do the heavy lifting (he's the fella with the towel on his shoulder). That guy can work.

caliking

And I even managed to save my marriage by restraining myself at the restaurant supply store. I should quit while I'm ahead.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

caliking said:

And I even managed to save my marriage by restraining myself at the restaurant supply store. I should quit while I'm ahead.

Bill says he has Karubecues in stock ready for Christmas delivery. We shall see how restrained you are. 

Foghorn

Are you guys awake?  More sausage today?

How much extra pork fat is there for future sausage production?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Foghorn said:

Are you guys awake?  More sausage today?

How much extra pork fat is there for future sausage production?

Are we awake? Funny. Had s fire going before 8am.

We are smoking the Texas beef jalapeño and casing up the Tejas, brats, Italian, and Merguez lamb sausage as we speak. No determination on excess fat for future production yet but we are using a ton of it today. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Grilled off some Texas beef patties on top of the dishwasher last night to make sure we had the flavor right. We did. Threw some on the cutting board with a brisket and ate it all with our hands, while standing up, as is protocol in such situations 

thetrim

SciAggie said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Garage Mahal prepped and ready for the big show. 8 bells sharp tomorrow am....

That garage is indeed a wonder. 

Coming from you that's an especially strong statement.  Who's garage is this anyway?

lkapigian

Awesome documentation, thanks for sharing

Botch

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

This is an anatomy lesson for me, I had no idea bacon went that high up on the rib cage.  Or is that where "short ribs" start?  

Botch

And, this is my favorite thread in a long time!  
 

20stone

thetrim said:

SciAggie said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Garage Mahal prepped and ready for the big show. 8 bells sharp tomorrow am....

That garage is indeed a wonder. 

Coming from you that's an especially strong statement.  Who's garage is this anyway?

The garage was unfinished when we bought the house a year ago, and we went a little nuts. 

20stone

The Texas beef sausage was a team effort. With 50 lbs of meat, we were making layers of beef, pork fat, mixed seasonings, minced jalapenos, minced garlic and ice cold beer. 

Dobie

Mad props on all of this 

SciAggie

I know y’all have done a tone of work. It must be very satisfying though. 

Foghorn

SciAggie said:

I know y’all have done a tone of work. It must be very satisfying though. 

It will be very satisfying when I eat the fruits of their labors. 

Thanks guys for all all the hard work. 

JRWhitee

20stone said:

The Texas beef sausage was a team effort. With 50 lbs of meat, we were making layers of beef, pork fat, mixed seasonings, minced jalapenos, minced garlic and ice cold beer. 

I is really nice of you guys to do all work for Butt Blast! 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Botch said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

This is an anatomy lesson for me, I had no idea bacon went that high up on the rib cage.  Or is that where "short ribs" start?  

Nope, spare ribs are right above the belly.

DMW

Now I'm really pissed my trip to Texas this week got cancelled. Strong work guys.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

DMW said:

Now I'm really pissed my trip to Texas this week got cancelled. Strong work guys.

I’m bummed too. We will catch up down the road. Could have used you on the pig tables this week!

caliking

SciAggie said:

I know y’all have done a tone of work. It must be very satisfying though. 

To say the least We had a great time tackling another hog, eating and drinking well, and making a sh!t ton of sausage. My favorite of the ones tasted was the lamb merguez sausage. But the tejas was damn fine as well. And the brats. And the TX beef sausage. F*ck. It was all d@mn good. 

The pace seemed more relaxed this time around, maybe because we know the process much better now, have commercial refrigeration available, and don't have an amorous donkey to dodge on the premises (inside joke). But we all know that things likely went much smoother because @Foghorn stayed home this time. 

Big shout out to @20stonespice for putting up with all of us this weekend. She does make hanging out with these louts more bearable. 

CTMike

Looks like an awesome weekend - would love to attend one of these some time.

Foghorn

If my absence leads to more efficient sausage production I’m OK with that. This time. 

I’m planning to attend the next one so I guess we better plan for longer days on that one. Sorry.

20stone

AW/SS3 - Lessons Learned/Tips for Next Time
We had a ton of fun, and feel that this is the most organized we have been.  The pace was right, though I still feel like I have been beaten with a fish billy.  This will be a bit of inside baseball, but want to share some learning and be able to find this for AW/SS4.

Mistakes

• Italian sausage - finely minced fresh oregano and basil did not make it into the mix
• Merguez - paprika mismeasured - the product of using a tsp/Tbs recipe for the lamb we impulse purchased.  As a result, though they taste awesome, they lack the traditional red color

Both happened late in the day.  The fresh herbs didn't fit in the premeasured tub of spices I made, and were sitting unlabeled in a bowl next to it

The paprika is resolved for next time - I have since converted the recipe to % and put it in the spreadsheet (see "Sucesses" below)

Improvements (EGGERS, PLEASE CHIME IN)

• Salt reduced another 10% for next time - now targeting 1.38% all in (factoring in Cure 1)
• Will try big die for meat/small die for fat for some sausages
• More hands or less pig - We had the pace right and the process right, but didn't get it all done
• It would be great to have a garage sink, so that scummy/fatty wash tubs could be drained to the sewer.  I was carrying 5 gallon tubs into the house to dump down the kitchen sink.  Not ideal

Successes

• No pig DNA made it in the house
• Recipes are dialed in - If you are making a ton of sausage, and would like some thoughts, hit me up
• The sausage spreadsheet is dialed in - With recipes from multiple sources that use a range of scales (Ruhlman uses g per 10 lbs of meat, some use % of meat weight, some use tsp/Tbs), converting them all to %, and then having them scale automatically for the amount we are making has greatly reduced fu&%ups
• This was our most relaxed effort to date.  Still an a$$whip, but less of a $hit$how

Takeaways

• Butchering a 430# hog (310# on the hook) is a royal a$$whip, for civilians, at least - While we were more organized this time, and worked at an easier pace, we did not finish.  There is still ~60# of sausage hanging in the meat locker that needs to be bagged.
• Manglitsa hogs were bred to be lard hogs, very successfully.  We made about 140# of sausage and probably have enough back fat to make 140# more.  The downside - no usable belly (except for lard rendering)
• Mixing in other creatures (beef and lamb, this time) is a win, and really mixes up our production.  We ended up adding 44# of beef and 10# of lamb to the process

We still have a ton of sausage to bag, some salami to make and a Meat Locker to convert back to Cave Mode, but this was a ton of work and a ton of fun.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

agreed on all counts. This was a huge job, even for 4-7 guys depending on who was working at the time. Pace was sustainable enough to prevent the "asswhip" part of AWSS and I thought the process was spot on. The amount and level of commercial grade equipment has done more than a little to ease the load as well.  Seemed like there was enough space for people to jump in and out as their energy level/body soreness permitted. Even at this, we did one 12 hour day and another 8+ hour day with 4-7 people at any given time and still didn't get 'er done. Just goes to show the scale of this operation.

A sink in the garage that drained to sewer would be a huge upgrade to keep the DNA outside and not in the house. I feel bad getting your garage dirty, not to mention the house! 

Love the addition of other proteins to keep the menu fresh.

As for the pig- as you and I discussed, Manga's are not my bag for meat. They are unreal for sausage but we can get all the sausage we want plus better muscle meat from the right pig. Just have to find it. The meat on a manga, although gorgeous (it's ruby red like Bluefin tuna), is too few and far between for me. I don't see how they even walk with the fat to meat ratio. The bellies are like 95/5% fat to meat. We just turn the whole belly into lard! Huge waste of poundage and time in my book. Would like to research and find a meatier breed more like Spot from AWSS II. 

Another great weekend of laughing and learning cool stuff. The dishwasher ran 12 hours Saturday and 6 hours Sunday (most in a downpour) and never missed a beat. didn't even have to clear ash the whole time. That thing is a workhorse in a small package. Love it even more than when I bought it. And as Caliking noted, the sweet smell of wafting smoke from a live fire is aromatherapy for guys like us. Since it's already in the back of my truck I am taking it to a carwash to clean out this time. After a brisket, pigs ears and 50lbs of sausage, it needs a bath. 

We have a great crew so even when we have a member traipsing around rural Virginia in a tuxedo, we can still crank out some serious production for a home operation. 

northGAcock

Legume

As always, a great read.  If you do find yourselves in need of another set of hands, bad knees or a weak back, just holler.  Always happy to help.

20stone

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

...
Another great weekend of laughing and learning cool stuff. The dishwasher ran 12 hours Saturday and 6 hours Sunday (most in a downpour) and never missed a beat. didn't even have to clear ash the whole time. That thing is a workhorse in a small package. Love it even more than when I bought it. And as Caliking noted, the sweet smell of wafting smoke from a live fire is aromatherapy for guys like us. Since it's already in the back of my truck I am taking it to a carwash to clean out this time. After a brisket, pigs ears and 50lbs of sausage, it needs a bath. 

Agreed. The Dishwasher is a beast. The funniest thing this weekend was when you were sniffing at the brisket (when the pig ears were in as well) and said, "Something smells funny. I may need to take the ears out." It turned out that @20stonespice was searing salmon inside the house and the hood vent was dumping out Eu du Bearfish.

We do now have the right apparatus for doing this sort of thing.  I was pleasantly surprised how well the Meat Locker worked in Fridge Mode as well.

Legume said:

As always, a great read.  If you do find yourselves in need of another set of hands, bad knees or a weak back, just holler.  Always happy to help.

I am tempted to do a "Bring Your Lean Protein" day, and just bang out sausage to soak up the surplus fat we have.

Any of you in Houston (or near enough to come to Houston) interested in a sausage day like that?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Legume said:

As always, a great read.  If you do find yourselves in need of another set of hands, bad knees or a weak back, just holler.  Always happy to help.

We are long on bad knees and weak backs but would love it if you made it to one of these some time. You would love it. 

Begger

I could be dead-wrong here, but Isn't It AGAINST THE RULES to name an animal you are intending to eventually have for dinner?

Foghorn

@20stone, the previous pig was only half mangalitsa - correct?  We got some bacon out of that one.  And we have one full manga and one half manga left?  Is that correct?