# Hey Pop's, what do you recall about your dad smoking with corn cobs?



## shortend (Sep 8, 2011)

I do have some serious questions about any recollections you have of your dad smoking with corn cobs, but let me start it off with a little story, since we both remember "the olden' days".

We had an old neighbor, named Inor Johnson. As with many of us farm folks, "back in the days", he had what we called a "Privey", an "out house" for you unlearned.

Inor didn't have a sheet of TP or even a Sears & Roebuck catalog in his privey. What he did have, was 2 buckets filled with corn cobs.  One had red (field corn) cobs in it, the other had white (sweet corn) cobs in it. Being, the curious type of kid that I was, one day I asked him, "Mr Johnson, (back in those days, you addressed your elders as Mr. and Mrs. out of respect) why do you have those buckets of corn cobs in your Privey?" Inor laughed, and said, " Oh, dats so I nos when da constitution is dun. Ya gotta uce tu a dem dere red wons, den ya gotta uce won a dem dere white wons, ta see if ya need to uce sum mor a dem dere red wons." 
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






  That's a joke that I know Inor would approve of. He had a terrific sense of humor.

Yes, we really did have a neighbor named, Inor Johnson. He was an immigrant from Denmark, and he did in fact, talk just like that. We loved Inor and his wife, Greta. They were wonderful neighbors, and treated us kids as if we were their own.  They were WWII relocation refugees. They had lost both of their sons in the war and never heard anything about what ever happened to them. Can you imagine the sorrow of that? I never understood why, but the government moved them somewhere else very quickly one day. We never heard from them again, but I do reflect on them from time to time.

Boy, is that off subject! I may need to write a book someday of my recollections as a farm kid growing up on the cusp of the "old ways" and the new.

Now, back to the corn cobs. Pops, what do you remember about them? Were they white cobs, red cobs, or a combination of both. Were they dried cobs or were they a bit wet. Can you tell us everything you remember about how your dad used them? How the meat was hung. The type of smokehouse that was used. The heat souce and tending that was necessary? I know you've posted some about this in the past, but it's so scattered that it's hard to put it all together. I know you are proud of your past experiences and you most certainly should be. The Artisian of the past is rapidly getting away from us. If we don't let others know about this stuff it's going to be lost forever. We know you are a terrific resource of information that is tried and true over time, having grown up with it. Some how, some way that has to be passed on.

Maybe Jeff should consider that as a regualr future newsletter feature. Interview some of the old timers with meat cutting, sausage making, and smoking meat backgrounds and just let them recall it all. Let it all hang out, for the rest of of us to learn from and hopefully keep the goodness of the past alive in some way.

ShortEnd


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## pops6927 (Sep 9, 2011)

Well, I just posted a pm about pickling different meats that reached back into nostalgia quite far, but used up most of my time before work right now (and killed my typing a/c my stroke hand) so I will have to wait until tomorrow morning.  I get up early (3:30 am) so I can get on here until 5:30 and have time to type (it tkes me a long time, every word has mistakes).  The pm was about mixing meats in brining, here's what I said:

Putting two different products in a brine together?   Of the same animal, no problem.  But, mixing animals, such as beef and pork, you're also mixing two different blood juices that could affect one or another in the brine (different enzymes, hemoglobins, etc).  We would take any leftover beef roasts, for example (boneless rolled prime rib, rump, shoulder, etc) and put in one small bucket (30 gallon) and pork roasts (rib end, loin end, picnic, butts) in another, and chickens and turkeys in yet another, when unloading the meat cases Saturday night - we were closed Sundays and we had to defrost and clean the meatcases on Sundays.  We kept track of the barrel numbers on a huge chart, along with all the other product we did - date, barrel no, product inside. They would pickle for x days and we'd pull and smoke them (or in the case of beef roasts we'd let them cure 14 days and sell for corned beef mostly, a few we'd smoke into pastrami too).  So we'd have an outlet for fresh product into cured and smoked.  Ok, so then what, if it didn't sell?  Dad invented and got approved through the State different products to further reprocess stuff, lol.  Smoked pork products (ham ends, pork butts and picnics, bacon ends) he'd bone out, season and grind and make up ham loaves - 80 lbs at a time; we'd season and grind them, then form and hand roll into 2 lb. loaves, wrap in aluminum foil and freeze, then take back out and wrap with heat sealed cellophane and labelled (with a State Inspected label) and put in the retail freezer to sell.  One of our inspectors, Mike, bought one at least once or more a week, he was enthralled with them!  Same way with the corned beef, we'd chop up and season and grind them into a corned beef loaf.  Chickens?  Nooo.. once they were in the case a week, we'd toss them, lol!  But we didn't have to toss out that many at all, pickled and smoked chickens sold very well, no one else anywhere had them!  And, we had a big business making regular beef meat loaves and italian meat balls too!  We were able to clean up any trim from the cattle we processed (no box beef back then, it was all fores and hinds) plus from local heiferette rounds we'd buy to seam out an trim for dried beef. 

Once you've used the pickle, toss out the used brine.  You can keep refrigerated fresh brine for 5 days as long as it's not been contaminated; if it has you'll see foam from the sugars form on it.

As a side note, my brother and i of course had to work in the store since we can remember.  We were scooping out meatballs (a totally boring, long job), rolling them and placing on full pan bakery sheets to go into the freezer.  My brother and I got fooling around and would take the meatball from the hand scooper (just like you'd use in the kitchen) and toss one up on the ceiling (which was totally impervious and clean - we knew, because we had to clean it every night, lol along with the rest of the meatroom) and see what kind of 'hangtime' until it'd fall back down on the table.  I tossed one up one second before Mike the State Meat Inspector walked in - bro and i stared at each other, totally afraid to look up... he stopped and chatted... then no more than walked into the smokehouse room and plop.. the meatball fell down!  We both burst out laughing so hard Mike came back in to see what we were laughing about!  We never did tell him!

This took me well over an hour to type.  

But, i'll reply tomorrow if that is ok!


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## shortend (Sep 9, 2011)

Thanks Pops, I can just picture you and your brother doing that. LOL  I love your life stories. They're priceless. I'll be waiting to hear more from you anytime your ready.


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## Bearcarver (Sep 9, 2011)

Great story Pops!!!

Thanks,

Bear


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## SmokinAl (Sep 9, 2011)

It would be great to sit around a campfire with you Pops, and listen to some of your stories!


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## africanmeat (Sep 9, 2011)

Yup it is a great story my friend, you are a fountain   of knowledge  .


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## pops6927 (Sep 9, 2011)

unfortunately having another stroke in the er  being admitted will get back to u


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## tjohnson (Sep 9, 2011)

Hang in there Pops!

Todd


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## roller (Sep 9, 2011)

Those memories are priceless....I love that billboard sign you posted..I remember seeing billboards like that up in the Ozarks when I was a kid....We used to always stop and buy something..


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## venture (Sep 9, 2011)

God be with you Pops!


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## venture (Sep 9, 2011)

I have more to add to this thread.  I will not do it now.

Right now my heart is with Pops!


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## DanMcG (Sep 10, 2011)

Get well soon Pop's!


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## shortend (Sep 10, 2011)

So sorry to hear that, Pop's. Our prayers are with you my friend. Get well real soon.


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## pops6927 (Sep 10, 2011)

I will see what I can do, don't have to be to work after all, but they're taking tests, grrrrr! 

Dad got his cobs originally from the feed store, GLF if I remember.  Dad plowed them out during the winters so it was a barter system.  
They came in 50 & 100 lb burlap sacks and they had been crushed by the local grist mill; they were about double the size of kernals of corn and mostly white cob but there was a little red in them too. We stored them down cellar where they were cool and dry - that was key because of the corn sugars in them they were unstable and could spontaneously combust if they were the least bit damp!

Farmers shelled their corn in the field then picked up the cob separate and took themboth to the mill.

The employees (meatcutters or us boys if available!) would take the wheelbarrow from the meatroomb
door outside, wheel it down the driveway into the garage then down a ramp into the dirt floor cellar &into the 'cob room', awalled off room w/ceiling strage area for the cobs; it had to be kept separate because of rats.  Then wheel it up to the meatroom dock, toss it up and into the smokehouse room where we'd slit open the burlap and dump into an old curing sugar barrell from Aula Co.  (Like taking my dry ingredients and put 200 lbs into a barrell).  

Like i sad  I'd modeled my smokehouse after my dad's from Koch Co.  Big upper door to hang meat, small narrow door to feed the cobs and drip pans in between; but dad's house had a fancier delivery system: there was a long pipe propane gas burner with an angle iron track above it and a long rectangular cast iron pan on it. The pan was about 12" w 16" long 2" high and you used a metal hand shovel to pull it out to the end of the track, then scoop out some cobfrom an old 30# metal round meat bucket that you scooped some in to.


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## pops6927 (Sep 10, 2011)

Then push the pan back over the flame to let them smolder.  As kids dad would show us the cobs for a second or two to watch the worms crawl out of the cob chunks and burn up - kewl!  Lol! I should add that the houses were over 9 ft tall.  Dad built a pit 3 ft deep for the smokehoues (two houses facing each other about 4 ft apart. A wood floor (later cement &poured floor a/c State regs) butted up to them and he built a bridge out of 2x6 planks you would raise up and climb down a couple steps to feed the lower door cobs, then when you had to load or fill either house you would lower the bridge and drive the large rolling meat truck on it and process what you had to do.  One of us boys' jobs was to slide out the three drip pans and clean them.  There was 1 center one and two lower ones, one on each side underneath the center one, the center one overflowing into the two side pans. The fat would render and burn and crust up in the pans and would be impossible to scrape out with block scrapers so we would line the pans with aluminum foil and the ham & bacon grease would slide off much easier; that's why I line my foil pans with foil so I can reuse them over and over!


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## smokeamotive (Sep 10, 2011)

Glad to see your OK there Pops! There's been enough bad news around lately.


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## shortend (Sep 10, 2011)

Glad all is well, and it was just a testing experience. As much as it sucks, ya gotta do what the Doc says. Given your history, don't be take'n any chances. Look, you gotta stay around to keep all of the rookies that get on here, from killing themselves!! I'm sure you've probably already saved hundreds of lives explaining the need for cure in the meat! Just look at the number of questions about it each and every day! You're one of our "good guys."  Pops, you have one hell of lot of devoted minions. You lead, we'll follow.

ShortEnd


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## daveomak (Sep 10, 2011)

Pops, you have everyones support.... I am sure there are at least 10,000 spots "reserved  for you"  to post on...  Your entire family will help you through this rough spot...

Your friend, Dave


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## michael ark (Sep 10, 2011)

Get well soon .I always enjoy your post.


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## pops6927 (Sep 11, 2011)

Thank you all for the get well wishes!  At work I finished resetting the Sprint section and sat down for a minute and had some sort of another stroke; they're determining what kind.  Still waiting for results.


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## roller (Sep 11, 2011)

May the Lord be with you and protect you !!!!!!!


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## pops6927 (Sep 17, 2011)

Well, i posted my latest debacle in another post, so now I can continue with this one.  I'm at home and recuperating.  Gotta be in short spurts cuz I tire out easy.  So, where was I?


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## michael ark (Sep 17, 2011)

Glad to hear you home take it slow.


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## pops6927 (Sep 17, 2011)

The cobs we used were dried and taken to the grist mill to be ground into marble sized chunks.  We got them from the grist mill (GLF) in 100# burlap bags (we'd get a few 50# too, but not many; those were for when only the women were there and had to bring up a bag or two) and one of the most important things was to make sure the bags stayed dry, otherwise they could spontaneously combust if left touching each other.  As long as they were dry you could store them down cellar; in the cob room we usually had 30 - 40 bags stored.  Esp. during winter and custom slaughtering season we'd got through a couple bags a day running both smokehouses 10 hours or more.  

Then, the local grist mill closed down and we had to drive to one outside of Syracuse, called Mercer Mills.  That was a haul and trying to bring back as many bags as possible was difficult.  Then, not long after, farmers started not shelling their corn in the field and hauling off the cobs separately; we had to pay farmers to do so because they could send their corn to the BirdsEye plant and get it shelled and processed there at a good price.  Eventually we had to no longer use plain corn cobs because they just weren't available; we had to use low moisture ensilage (corn and cob together used for feed) and it was excessively dangerous, a/c trying to bag and store it prompted constant worry on spontaneous combustion.   Eventually the use of dried corn cobs could not be provided locally.  Dad had passed away and mom was wanting to retire and refused to sell the business to any of us kids (she said she'd never forgive herself for strapping us with a 7 day a week business) and sold it outright to a business wanting to start a chain.  The new owner bought up a couple other properties, tore down the old store and there is now a modern grocery chain store there.


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## pops6927 (Sep 17, 2011)

So, the heyday of using corncobs for a smoking medium is past unless you have a source locally for it.  With the remnants of corn sugar, they burn well but not as hot as ensilage does with the corn in it, they have a sweeter smoke than hardwood, and they smolder well.  If they're wormy, it just adds to the flavor, lol!

We'd get our fresh hams from Tobin Packing Co. in Rochester in batches of 36 hams at a time, 12-14 lb. raw weight per.  They (normally) would be pretrimmed with the hocks cut off.  We would unpack them, then get out the pickle pump and pump them, injecting each  7 or more times in specific areas so they would be thoroughly pumped (see my ham thread below to find out how and where), then toss into barrels (55 gal. drums - 2), cover with brine and weighted down with 5 gal. water jugs partially filled.  Then roll them into the brine cooler and record the barrel information, date, etc. on a big chart we would make up.

21-30 days later we would rotate the product through and out of the brine cooler to prepare for the smokehouse, emptying the barrels with a long hand hook to a meat truck that we'd roll out to the meatroom where we'd sack each ham from a huge roll of stockinette.

Dad had two rows of smoke sticks three deep.  You would sack each ham in stockinette and tie the square knots so that the ham would hang on the ham hook the thinnest so you could fit 6 hams on a stick.  Three rows deep of hams 6 each by two rows high, total of 36 hams to a smokehouse.

You would start the smokehouse approx. 7 am, feeding cobs every half hour into the pan, pulling it out to fill then pushing back in over the propane flame to let smolder.  The hams smoked the first day to 6 pm, the thermostat set to a constant temp of 145° - 150° until the hams reached an internal of 135°.  Some hams, as long as they were 135° or greater, were pulled then and hung for 'uncooked hams'. The temp was lowered to 130° overnight.  The next morning the temp was raised to 160° and continued to cook with no more smoke until temp internal was a minimum 146°, then these were pulled as 'fully cooked' hams.   (They were all pulled and hung into a separate drip cooler):








bellies, uncooked hams, cooked hams hanging in the drip cooler.

On the bellies, we would get the bellies from Pilgrim Packing in Syracuse in 350 lb. batches.  We would put down the bellies in 55 gal drums, 2 of them, laying them flat and rotating them, sometimes putting two small ones side by side, either skin up or skin down, didn't matter.  We'd cover them with brine and weight them down with 5 gal. collapsable water bags partially filled to keep the product submerged and roll them into the brine cooler, again recording the barrel no's and dates on our big chart to let sit and cure for 21 - 30 days.  

We'd rotate product through the brine cooler sometimes several times a week depending on business, but we always smoked at least a minimum of 350 lbs of bellies and 36 hams a week for sale, and most weeks two or three more batches.

Of course, we always had side products to do too - hocks, ears, snouts, tails, chickens, turkeys, dried beef, corned beef to pickle, sometimes pastrami to smoke, beef plates for beef bacon, whole smoked beef livers, smoked tongues, Canadian bacon, you name it if it moved at one time we probably smoked it!


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## shortend (Sep 17, 2011)

Thanks, Pops! That was another extremely interesting post. Ahhh, the good old days.....when ya worked your rump off! Living in Iowa and having friends and family still in farming, I can get all the corn cobs I could use. I may get ahold of some cobs, dry 'em out good, chop 'em up and give 'em a try on some bacon. Sounds like I'll need more of a white cob, like popcorn. Sweet corn would probably be too wet to get dried out good enough without spoiling. Field corn cobs are red, and I could probably mix a few of them in. I may have a project brewing.

Glad to see your doing OK. Keep up the good recovery, and thanks again.

ShortEnd


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## pops6927 (Sep 18, 2011)

I'd love to see you give it a go; don't know if you could do it commercially enough to make a business out of it but for a cottage industry it would be great to see someone still producing cob smoked hams again!


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## shortend (Sep 19, 2011)

Pops6927 said:


> I'd love to see you give it a go; don't know if you could do it commercially enough to make a business out of it but for a cottage industry it would be great to see someone still producing cob smoked hams again!


Definately not looking to do it commercially, but would like to try it on some bacon first. Then, maybe go for a ham. I've never cured a fresh ham before, but with your brine, I think may have to give 'er a whirl. Got some cobs lined up already. Corn harvest will be starting here, very soon. Haven't located the popcorn cobs yet, but will ask around. Several folks I know, grow a few acres of popcorn every year for a local popcorn company just a little south of here.

When I get ready, I'll give ya a holler for a little advice, if that's ok.

ShortEnd


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## pops6927 (Sep 19, 2011)

The link at the bottom of my post tells how to pump a ham.  Don't know about popcorn cobs, you may have quite the lively bunch of cobs smouldering, lol!  As far as I know it was just field or sweet corn for feed that they used.


ShortEnd said:


> Definately not looking to do it commercially, but would like to try it on some bacon first. Then, maybe go for a ham. I've never cured a fresh ham before, but with your brine, I think may have to give 'er a whirl. Got some cobs lined up already. Corn harvest will be starting here, very soon. Haven't located the popcorn cobs yet, but will ask around. Several folks I know, grow a few acres of popcorn every year for a local popcorn company just a little south of here.
> 
> When I get ready, I'll give ya a holler for a little advice, if that's ok.
> 
> ShortEnd


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## jc1947 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Pops,*

*    Ya gotta get better soon. Where else are all us newbies going to hear stories like yours???*

*Or learn about cuts of meat no longer in the stores.*

*Hope your back to your old self soon,*

*JC 1947*


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## pops6927 (Sep 21, 2011)

Well, thank you, JC1947!  

After some recent pm's on this, something's brewing in corncobland, so be in the lookout for more info coming along!


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## pops6927 (Aug 13, 2012)

Well, it's been almost a year since that stroke, had another one 10/16/11 too that further downgraded me, haven't had any more since.  i'm totally disabled and on permanent disability, can no longer work any more.  So, i have ore time for projects in between naps (have a lot of healing that requires a lot of sleep).

But, this weekend I had time to go through an old album and discovered some lost memories I'd like to share with y'all if I can!

Pictures of the store after remodeling:













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Dad at a farmer's market promoting his hams and bacons, around 1953.













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inside the original store before remodel, around 1948.  This was a new 'self-service' concept.













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another shot, end displays, etc.  Dad built and painted all the shelves and endcaps, there were no commercial fixtures!


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## daveomak (Aug 13, 2012)

Thanks for sharing the great memories Pops....   Find more pics if you can.....   they are priceless....   Dave


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## fpnmf (Aug 14, 2012)

Great pics Pops...

The pic of the outside brings back tons of memories.

We had a lot of fun times in that place.

I don't recall seeing you posting about the fire phone. 

It was another job you did..I remember sitting the fire phone a few times that your whole family actually left the building.

Hahahaha I will be having a good day today thinking about you, John,Joann and your parents..

Have a great day yourself Pops...


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## smokinhusker (Aug 14, 2012)

Oh I love the pictures!!!! Thanks for sharing those.


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## shortend (Aug 14, 2012)

Thanks for sharing the pictures Pop's. I really enjoy a good blast to the past history and yours is quite rich indeed. I still haven't done that corn cob bacon smoke. I chopped up some of the dried cobs I had to do a test run to see how well they would burn. Had a little trouble keeping them going without getting the heat a little higher than I would like for bacon. Recently ordered some of Todd's Corn Cob pellets to give them a try. I know I'll be able to manage the temp with those. Again, thanks for the pictures. They're very interesting.

ShortEnd


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## kadoka (Aug 14, 2012)

Pops you seem like a man I would love to have live next door to me. God bless you!


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## dragonmaster194 (Aug 19, 2012)

Pops, Thank you so much for sharing the stories and pics.  Keep it up, it brings back memories for me too.  When I was a kid, we used cobs for heating our porch which had an old cook stove in it.  My mom baked bread in it, and used cobs for the heat source.  All my aunts and uncles were farmers and shelled their corn on the farm.  Our family would go to visit family during this time and all the men would do the farm work and the women would cook.  We would bring home a truck load of cobs and store them in the cellar.  Every day during winter my chore was to bring a 5 gal bucket of cobs up to the cob bin in the porch.  Now the farmers grind the coba as they combine the corn.  Ah, the good olden days.  Steve


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