Hey Greg- I bought my 3-D in March/2016 and like you spent quite a bit of time just researching and viewing tips/suggestions from folks like DM..Kari and many other regulars on this forum. I am a big outdoor guy and paid attention to your posts on sausage/hot sticks etc.. We still make our own venison brats/summer sausage by using a smoke house my grandfather built on our family farm but I still enjoy seeing your yearly "sausage party" updates.. Had no clue what terms like Charcuterie and Sous Vide etc meant before I started using the site and I am still impressed by some of the posts I see from folks on these methods (especially the Charcuterie section)..
Hi Gene,
Yeah, we don't use my #3 for much of our deer processing anymore. It is just too small for what we do. We have an old German sausage making master in a nearby small town meat market that smokes our sausage and stix for pennies on the dollar and we have always said that until stops doing it there is no sense to build a big smoker of our own.
At some point, we may need to build a large smokehouse and do it ourselves, but we are going to let it ride until then.
We typically make about 100-150 pounds of country style, fry, ring, or whatever you call it (regional term I think) and 150-200 pounds of snack sticks with a variety of other smaller batch things. The most I can fit in my #3 at a time is 25 lbs and that is pushing it.
But, I will keep smoking my butts, briskets, ribs, etc in the trusty old #3 for many years to come. One of these days when I have some extra dough, I may get another WIFI SI unit to dedicate to the lake place as I have a feeling that I may use it more out there than I do at home.
I hear you about the new cooking methods too. I had never heard about the Sous Vide or Charcuterie or making my own bacon until hearing about it here. That is one of the main reasons that I really wanted to get back involved here again, because there is so much great information that I felt like I was missing out on stuff.
The awesome thing is that there are so many people joining the forum here every day, and you never know which new person with be the next Divotmaker, Old Sarge, Pork Belly, SuperDave, GregBooras, SconnieQ, etc (sorry for the too many to count people that I didn't include) and what skills, cooking methods, and experience that they will bring with them.
Smoke On My Friends!!!