80 lbs Pork Butt Finished - 4 diff Sausages & snack sticks *Tons of Pics

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thoseguys26

Master of the Pit
Original poster
Jan 4, 2012
1,341
60
Aspen Valley
I definitely dove head first with my new smoker & access to a commercial grinder and stuffer! I got a great deal from a friend who sold me 80lbs of pork butt for $1.02 /lb and 4 whole ham hocks at $1.20 /lb for prosciutto. I'll get to the prosciutto later because I'm many months away from the final product.

15 lbs of Fresh Italian

15 lbs of Fresh Hot Italian

32 lbs of Jalepeno Cheddar (10 lbs smoked)

10 lbs Dried Italian (still drying)

10 lbs Smoked Snack Sticks (3lbs pork 7 lbs beef(27% fat))

Took the bones out of each butt and saved them for soup. If you've never cleaned butts for sausage before, it is very IMPORTANT to not just look everywhere for the thin pieces of bone but feel the entire butt with your fingers because a lot of time you cannot see them. Depending on the pig, some have more of the calcium plates then others and you have to make sure you go through each piece of meat very thoroughly or you'll have ground pieces of bone in your sausage.

I cut them in strips, brought it over to my Italian friends house and used his super grinder. Without the bones I got a total of 75lbs of meat. Ground it once, course grind and it only took 7.5 minutes! That saved me hours..

I weighed them out in batches and mixed my seasonings in and let them sit overnight.

Luckily my awesome Italian neighbor / good friend had a 25-30lb stuffer! More hours of life saved..

Stuffed them all and let them sit a day to bloom.

Took 5lbs of the spicy italian and reg italian and hung them for Dried SausageTIP - While hanging to dry, it's important to squeeze them between your hands to flatten them out. You can pinch them with your thumbs and fingers but I find if you squeeze them between your hands while they are flat with fingers together ( as if you're praying to the sausage gods). This helps prevent a hollow area inside the middle to form while drying. That way you won't have a nice pocket for bacteria to grow. TIP 2 - grind the meat another time so it's finer. This will also help reduce the amount of air pockets. I'll post a money shot in a couple weeks when they're finished and I can slice into one.

I smoked 10 lbs of the Jalapeno Cheddar (hight temp cheddar) 1 hour cold smoke and less than three hrs at 225-260 for an IT of 160-165°. They turned out great. That was my first time using the high temp cheese, wow cool stuff. You get such nice pockets of cheese rather than your cheese just melting everywhere.

Fresh garlic tip. Use a garlic press and then smoosh and flatten them with a flat knife to make a paste. This way you will have no chunks of garlic but just the fresh flavor.

Partially freeze your sausage before vacuum sealing them and it'll be easier to package them and they'll keep their shape better.

The snack sticks came out fantastic, especially for my very first attempt at them. I learned some valuable things though. I used 3 lbs pork and 7 lbs (27% fat) beef.

I either smoked them at to high of a temp or I never should have skipped the ice bath because when they cooled some sticks had a build up of fat that settled on the bottom.  It easily scraped away and didn't seem to change any flavor but I'll prevent it next time.

When I type up my recipes from my notebook of scribbles, I can share some of my spices if interested. I'm curing a pork loin right now for some CB! can't wait - all of the CB pictures on this site made me take a special trip to the store yesterday.

Enjoy!

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day one dry

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day5 dry - notice the shape change (from praying to the sausage god)

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Smoked Jal Ched

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Wow!  looks good.  That was a lot of work but the payoff is awesome.  I like the sausage stuffer.
The stuffer is super heavy duty as you can see. Almost hard to move around by yourself.

My older brothers are bugging me every day for a care package!  I won't have to buy sausage for a while. I just made some homemade sausage and lentil soup...very good.
 
Looks like your hard work has paid off... that's some great looking sausages there...........
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and plenty of it

Joe
 
quit the start.............Make's me wonder what your going to do when you get the hang of things
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It's quite addicting..as you all know! I'm not exactly a rookie but at the same time I am ~  I was born into a hunting & fishing & farming family so I've been around plenty of meat and cooking. My first year of sausage making (3 years ago) I used mainly all in one spice packs. Everything turned out great BUT I couldn't stand the fact it wasn't 100% my own. So now it's all from scratch and I'm loving it! I've learned to write everything down and to measure by weight all the time if you want to be able to duplicate with precision.
 
I don't know about everyone else, but most of the fun and enjoyment of processing, cooking, smoking, curing, etc etc is to watch, hear, & know the enjoyment and excitement your friends and family have when they eat your food.

I love the fact my two older brothers are begging me to send them sausage, turkey legs, jerky, etc. I know it's better for them then what they usually get plus little brother can smoke some good food! I'm turning out to be one of those guys who gives meat presents for all occasions..
 
Whoa!  Major league effort there!

Looks great!

Good luck and good smoking.
Thanks Venture, I used to live just outside the line of the city limit sign in Lincoln, NE years ago! I remember some great trout fishing, bird/duck / deer hunting and trapping in those parts. We had a little ranch and had a cow a year, chickens, ducks, geese, goats, turkey's and a peacock who'd welcome us home on the top of our roof calling out his yelp yelp. Good memories!

Good smoking to you too!
 
 
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I don't know about everyone else, but most of the fun and enjoyment of processing, cooking, smoking, curing, etc etc is to watch, hear, & know the enjoyment and excitement your friends and family have when they eat your food.

I love the fact my two older brothers are begging me to send them sausage, turkey legs, jerky, etc. I know it's better for them then what they usually get plus little brother can smoke some good food! I'm turning out to be one of those guys who gives meat presents for all occasions..
Amazing! I got overwhelmed just reading it all. Meat presents are the best presents you can give. Smoked cheese and sea salt work too.
 
 
Man o man! That's one heck of a job you did. Everything looks great, and I love the stuffer & grinder!
 
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