Smoked 2 butts, tasso and jalapeno sausage

Posted on by September 17, 2019

9/17/2019 – Smoked in the vertical smoker from splits of our pecan firewood that was started burning in the fire pit.

  • Two pork butts with fat trimmed and separated into 4 pieces. All were salted and rubbed with 6POGS about an hour before smoking.
  • Two fresh jalapeno sausages from Rouses.
  • A dozen or so pork pieces seasoned heavily with 6POGS.

10:30 AM – The butts were put into the smoker after we had: tended the garden by watering the winter squash, okra, and peppers plus picking the usual 15-20 okra pods; and, put Mary’s new saddle on Ranger with a cross-fire style cinch as recommended by the Handy Horseman. Mary’s best ride yet and the first time to ride him in the yard. He even left us a pile in the front yard.

1:00 PM – The sausages and pork pieces were put into the smoker. It has been running 220? to 275 ? fairly consistently. I have to add a smoldering pecan split log about every 30 minutes.

4:00 – Pulled the four pieces, wrapped in foil after shaking on more 6POGS and a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of ACV in each. They ranged from 145 to 165?. Put into the convection oven at 300?.

Saurkraut Dill No. 6

Posted on by September 20, 2019

We liked the No. 5 so remade it–again without the garlic. This was with two heads of cabbage that, based on past work, I expected to fill two 1/2 gallon jars. We let it sit with the salt and seasoning for about 2 hours and beat it down with the meat mallet several times. Surprisingly, it fit into a 1/2-gallon and a quart jar.

We were also surprised that for the first time ever, after sitting in the salt and seasoning and being pounded, it made enough brine to fill the jars. We did not need to make up some to top it off as we have always had to do.

 Grams
Cabbage1730.0
Dried dill at 1 gm per 400 gm cabbage4.3
1.7% salt29.4
Lemon juice – 1 tbsp per 900 gms cabbage. Mary squeezed 3 small lemons that made 1/4-cup of juice.3.8

Okra Fermented No. 5

Posted on by September 20, 2019

9/10/2019 – Stuffed a half-gallon jar with okra and added one level tablespoon of crushed peppers and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne. Half of the spices were poured in when the jar was half full and the rest when it was packed to about 3/4″ of the top.

I mixed 5% brine and filled the jar. Screwed on one of the fermenting lids. All the glass weighs are in use or we would have used one so the peppers in the top were packed in very tightly so they stay down below the brine … hopefully.

Pickled Okra w/o Boiling Water Bath

Posted on by October 29, 2019

9/2/2019 – Following the advice found at canning forums, as extracted here, I prepared two pints of fresh okra per the following. One of the jars did not seal so it was put into the refrigerator. On 10/28/2019 we opened the second jar whose lid was still indented–it had maintained its vacuum. The okra was crispy and the garlic was crunchy. This is definitely one to try again.

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Sweet + Hot Pepper Ferments

Posted on by September 27, 2019

9/1/2019 – We made two different ferments with Sweet Banana peppers and Hot Hungarian Wax peppers from our garden. They should have been based on our first pepper ferment, done in a hurry while pickling peppers but we did not record what we did. So, we do not know the salt percent of the brine. As past ferments with jalapenos were not crunchy until the brine was 6%, we made both these with a 6% brine.

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