I learned something interesting about artificial maple flavor. It comes from sotolon, which is found in fenugreek seeds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotolon Artificial maple syrup is made with corn syrup, doesn't taste very good, and I really don't want to use it on lovely pork bellies! I have made...

Had my first go at a) Kabanosy, b) collagen casings, c) snack sticks of any kind. Loved the collagen casings, especially after trying to fit sheep casings over the wrong size tube when making breakfast links. I ordered the right size stuffing tube from LEM, but in the meantime used a stainless steel...

I like adding some prepared horseradish to mine. Not to mention cocktail sauce.

Tartar sauce is one of those things that you keep tasting it till you get it right. Hopefully you are still hungry by the time you are done!

Wow = 70 lbs! 15 lbs knocks me out! And a mighty fine looking 70 lbs I must say.

I've used zip ties, and they worked if my knots worked. Otherwise, they hold but the sausage drops. :cry: There is also the bubble knot. See slide 16 if this address works for you: http://www.delmarlearning.com/companions/content/1428319913/student_resources/PPTs/Sonnenschmidt%20Chapter%2004%20PPT.ppt

Made the breakfast sausages last night. My stuffer tube is plastic, 11/16, and I had 20/22mm sheep casings. My daughters and I worked quite a while getting the casings on the stuffer horn. They were better at it because their fingers are smaller. After multiple blowouts and breakages, we switched to...

Good idea. I have also been looking at oval shaped turkey roasters. You can get used enamelware ones on eBay pretty cheap. Have been making lunchmeats lately, and poaching the chubs in a round pot has not been very practical.

I was admiring that fat, too. Last time I made mortadella, I had some leftover cubed up fat, just a month or so old, that I had frozen. Enough for half my recipe. I added that, and then cubed up some fat from a larger piece of uncut backfat, also in the freezer. The newly cubed stuff came out lookin...

Thank you sir. I have said good bye to ALL my salamis, and am casting around for the next formula. I really like the look of this one, and I do have a bucket o'middles awaiting assignment.

Hey JBK, I just bought a 5 lb LEM stuffer and am quite happy with it. Was dithering over it for a long time, then saw that Amazon had a "used" one that actually just had a slightly damaged box. The metal gears attracted me as well. Great to work with this thing after years of stuffing with a grinder...

Devo - I can see why you wish you made more of that salami Milano. Beautiful! Is that a beef middle casing?

Jeff

Dang! Can't get started till the weekend. But I can buy my meat today...gives me something to do at least. Question: I watched a video of some cook making soprasatta. He was supposed to be an expert. He ground his meat so cold that it came out in those kinda half round icicles you get when you do th...

Thanks Kevin - beautifully done as usual!

Jeff

Devo - you are an inspiration! Great photo essay there - thank you. I just cut a couple of coppas off some pork butts last week and they are going through their first cure. Now I'm all the more excited about them. It is so hard to wait.... Going to start some bresaola too. Never done that before (or...

Honey chili bacon sounds fantastic!

Hey Tatoosh - how about hardwood sawdust? Some guys just grab a stick of hardwood and run it through a saw till they have enough sawdust. Or maybe you can find a cabinet maker who would give you whole sacks of it.