Treats

We have been making our own venison for the past 20+ years. We usually make hotdogs, stew meat, roasts, and steaks. But in the past 5 years we have been making pepper sticks, summer sausage, jerky, and smoked roast beef sandwich meat, etc..

We just finished up with making 80 pounds of pepper sticks, and 40 pounds of summer sausage. We will be making more summer sausage later.

You will have to send me a few to test out. Just to make sure they are safe for consumption.

-John

They are yummy!

Now I'm hungry...
Great setup!

If they taste as good as they look - you're in for some good eating !! All of us on here don't trust your rating on taste. If you share with AAAAALLLLLLL of us, we can get a better, well-balanced opinion !!!!
John already offered to sample/test some, and Bill is known to be a trust-worthy food critic, as am I. !!!!!!

Bill said:

Now I'm hungry...
Great setup!

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Two years ago, I decided it was time to upgrade the old meat processing equipment. I was using a converted over hand crank grinder, with an electric motor attached to it, and an old canning stuffer, both worked well, but just not the fastest. I went out and bought a new 1hp grinder/stuffer, a 20 pound mixer, a new meat saw, vacuum packer, a scale, a good electric knife sharpener, along with a few other odds and ends. About 5 years ago I purchased an old outdoor freezer, and converted it over to a smoke house. The inside is about 6 feet tall, and 4 foot square in the inside.

I am pretty well set up now for processing, and I hope the equipment lasts for many years. I havent paid to get a deer processed in about 25 years, bu I have heard of people paying $300+ per deer when getting summer sausage, snack sticks, and jerky made. We average 5-7 deer a year, so I figured it would pay for itself within a few years. I also smoke a bunch of turkeys, and other meats to experiment on, like roasts, fish, chickens, goose, pheasants, pork chops, bacon, etc... I have tried ribs, and for the life of me, I am not meant to make ribs.

4wanderingeyes said:

.. I have tried ribs, and for the life of me, I am not meant to make ribs

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Not my recipe, a friend shared it and now its the only way I cook ribs. Ribs dry out so...bake them in the oven at 350 smothered in sauerkraut until the meat starts peeling off the bone, about an hour, maybe a bit more. Then throw them on the grill to char them and dunk in BBQ sauce. Nice tender fall off the bone but juicy ribs..

Use cheap sauerkraut the pork fat makes it not so tasty so once it's done its job it's wasted.

4wanderingeyes - I like your idea of a freezer converted to a smokehouse. Good use of an old freezer. My son and I built a BBQ smoker out of a food grade 55 gal. drum. Removable fire/charcoal basket and it has a rack for a water/apple juice/sweet cider pan for moisture, plus a rack to put the meat on. Not big enough to smoke a bulk of meat, but it can do 4 or 5 racks of ribs. It's my son's smoker, and he's done beef brisket, ribs, and chicken on it. The moisture pan is what keeps the meat juicy, plus adjusting the heat / cooking time with air intakes.