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Snow is approaching and our basketball activities have been cancelled. That leaves me with a good amount of free time today. As a result, I'm doing a couple things I haven't done in a long time and one I've never done. First, I fired up the smoker and threw on a pork butt early this morning. Shortly, I'm going to start a red wine kit - the last time I did that was July, 2017. Finally, I'm going to use the remains Wednesday's Peruvian chicken to make chicken tortilla soup.
 
After the coast cleared and I heard the yelling stop upstairs (parent/child war of words), went ahead an stuffed 4 lbs of Kielbasa (actually a little less, made some patties to cook up for breakfast for my youngest son). Used natural casings this time around since the collagen casings were a bit too thick for the kids, though they secured the forcemeat w/o blowouts. I'm really liking my dedicated stuffer, though it only has a 5 lbs capacity, it works well since my batches for the most part are experimental and I don't have a lot of freezer space if I did make a big batch.

Will smoke lightly tomorrow (son thought the last batch was a little heavy on the pecan, I though it was perfect, but what do I know) as I bring it up to 155*F internal temp in the Weber Smokey Mtn while listening to the early playoff game (and freezing my butt off, it's cold out there). These will hang out in the fridge to dry up a bit until tomorrow.

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Researching and starting a batch of hot dogs, Nathan's style, for my hot dog queen (my 11 yr old daughter). She's quite excited (though I told her she won't be able to eat one until Tuesday or Wednesday), which tempered her excitement a bit.
 
Today I have been setting up my pc to run on linux mint cinnamon 18.3, I tried 19.1 but there is a problem with the new graphics drivers, the intermediate ones, not the nvidia ones, on the 19xx series. I am using legacy hardware, aka 9500 gt and q9550 cpu, which still works fine and is in fact fast for web surfing, so, I am not upgrading them. I am also, drinking some of my home made wine, it has no name or title, as its technically a blend, made by myself, from relatively fresh stock (which is up to six months old) I tend to rotate my wines similar to a solera system, the last major batch i had which contained wines going back to 2012, I had to ditch, through no fault of my own, so, this is a newish blended batch, but, coming along ok, I have also, set up a triple optic, in my drinking / bar area, which is handy as it means that shots are limited in volume, plus, there is always some available as long as I keep the bottles topped up, I have been watching game of thrones and having a drink of my wine today, its a good way to pass the time.
 
Visited my younger brother this morning (he lives exactly 1 mile away (less as the crow flies)). He was cooking bacon on a cast iron "bacon" pan on his grill (might be related to me, what'd ya think?) and we talked about his latest foray into sous vide cooking (he loves it). He bought an Anova unit when it was on sale last summer (I told him many here on this site seem to recommend it (ie. they use it a lot)). After a few beers (it was after 11 am, so legal in my book) I suggested that I could turn some of that venison taking up space in his freezer into some nice sausages (picked a country sausage recipe). He sent me home with a frozen pound, pre ground so I could make up and experimental batch. Since there is gonna be some wind around these parts tommorow (I did eat beans tonight, but that's not the type of wind I'm referencing) I went ahead and put my snausages in the oven set at 170*F on the convection setting (only had let them dry for a few hours prior to the oven). It's running anywhere from 175 to 210*F and the internal sausage temp is already up to 104*F (just put them in 10 minutes ago). I think I may have a problem developing here. Is there a sausage makers anonymous chapter around?

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Yum!

Did you mix with Pork?
Nope, that's what your recipe called for, used some veal and back fat this time (45% venison, 45% veal, 10% pork fat). Had to keep the pork for a meatloaf planned tomorrow. This is an image just before dunking in the ice water. Developed a really nice color. Currently dried off after their swim and hanging out to "bloom". Color will probably intensify a bit more. Only bummer is that there is no smoke on these, which made the youngest son happy (he thinks I've been applying too much smoke).

1-19-19_sausage-3.jpg
 
Rackapalooza day. Two wines coming out of barrels, two going in. I have 11 gallons of Carmerere/Petite Verdot from the spring. 6 will go into one barrel and I'll probably put the Zin from the fall in the other. Coming out will be the 2017 Merlot and Pinot Noir.
 
As the defending 2017 fantasy football champion, it was my duty to make an addition to the trophy since we are out of room for the plaques before handing over to current champ.
I’ve been stealing some free time here and there to work on it. And the finish line is now in site! Here is the progression
IMG_9918.JPGIMG_9922.JPGIMG_9934.JPGIMG_9939.JPGIMG_9967.JPG
Change of plans. Bottom now the top!
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Ended up also bottling the guava wine experiment. Great flavors and nose. Should do really well in the dog days of summer.
 
Nope, that's what your recipe called for, used some veal and back fat this time (45% venison, 45% veal, 10% pork fat). Had to keep the pork for a meatloaf planned tomorrow. This is an image just before dunking in the ice water. Developed a really nice color. Currently dried off after their swim and hanging out to "bloom". Color will probably intensify a bit more. Only bummer is that there is no smoke on these, which made the youngest son happy (he thinks I've been applying too much smoke).

View attachment 52975
FYI, trying to limit dinner leftovers during the week, so used some bbq rub on two chicken breasts and since I had some room on the grill, threw two of these sausages on to warm them up. Best batch by far I've made. Incredibly juicy and tasted more like a Nathan's dog than the recipe I used to replicate a Nathan's hotdog. The amazing thing is that there was no smoke used to cook these initially (did them in the oven because of the foul weather), but used charcoal to heat them up and the flavor was incredible. I can't wait to redo this recipe with a bit of pecan or apple wood!

Only bad thing is that I threw two on, ate one, and my son ate 1/2 of the leftover one (after he gorged himself on chicken), so not much left for breakfast tomorrow.
 

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