Rudy, Thank you very much and for having such a good memory! Next time I get some blood in my quart container I'll drop in 33 grams and give it a whisking. The small slaughter house I go to kills beef on Thursday at 8 a.m. I just have to be there at 8 and he'll walk it off the kill floor directly to...

Hello IdaKraut, Thanks for the input. Can you give me any more specifics about using the trisodium citrate, like how much added to what amount of blood? I really try and stay away from adding chemicals, as that's the whole reason I like to make my own sausage. If it works as good as you say, I'll ha...

Well I just pour the tablespoon of vinegar in and closed it up. I didn't stir it and probably should have. Now that I have a source for blood, I'll have to play around with it and see what works the best. I'm interested in how this is going to taste. The stuff I get at the market now is made without...

Hello all, My question is regarding how to slow the coagulation of fresh blood. Wanting to make some kiszka today, I ordered a qt. of fresh beef blood for pick-up from my local slaughter house. The butcher had it ready for me when I arrived, and it was no older than 1 hour. When I arrived home I imm...

Redzed, Talk to me about those stockinettes your using in the photo. It looks like a different size for the ham and another for the picnics. I'm interested in getting some for small hams, picnics, and some 10# chubs of headcheese for support. I've been searching the net and there is a lot of stuff o...

Redzed, I'm interested in your picnics and how you do them. Is that the cut you purchased in the store, picnics? Did you wet cure them? I'm interested in learning your process as to how much brine was injected vs. green weight, how long they were smoked and what temps you used. I'd sure like some sh...

Okay then, it sounds as though its split even for leaving the rind off or on. I can agree though that the price of pork bellies has gone through the roof. I just checked the case price of butts at Sam's Club yesterday and they were $1.38 per pound. I even thought of doing some Canadian bacon until I...

Hello to all, Two questions for those of you who do a lot of bacon smoking. I'm going to give my local slaughter house a call and order a pork belly or two. For slab bacon, do I ask for rind off or just get the belly with the rind on and trim it off myself after the finished process? Second, once I ...

Gulyás, No problem with not posting a picture. I looked into what it takes to post one, and I guess I have to set up an account with a third party, and move pictures from that website into this one....and....well it seems pretty confusing at the moment. I don't imagine I'll be posting pictures any t...

Gulyas, I never mentioned how my headcheese turned out, and thought I'd let you know it was GREAT. Many thanks for the help along the way too. So since headcheese is made from pork snouts and tongues, etc., have you ever considered making a headcheese from beef tongue and heart???? I do enjoy cold b...

Rudy, I'll certainly keep your suggestion in mind, and many thanks for keeping me in mind when doing this experiment.
Rick

Rudy, that makes complete sense. Again, many thanks for all the help. I'll let you know how the bologna turns out!

Rudy, you lost me on your "then add 26% less table or brown sugar" comment. You mentioned earlier that the original recipe contained 0.468 % dextrose. We decided if I boosted that amount and added 1% dextrose along with the culture, that would give me a nice tang. So assuming the bacteria eats up al...

Rudy, thank you very much for the help. As for the savings, Butcher Packer is only 3 hours east of me, so shipping is not a problem and the cost appears to be $15 for the culture. So two days at 100 F before raising the temperature to achieve the finished internal temp of 158F(per the Rytek book) sh...

Okay IdaKraut, now I'm getting somewhere. I'll look into the faster F-LC culture, bumping the dextrose up to 1%, and maintaining a lower temperature for a longer period before raising it. Oh, and I am partial to sour, no problem there! Many thanks for the simplification on using the culture for tang...