The reason I ask is it looks like the bottom fell out of the pork market this week, I saw a drop of $0.4o/LB on Boston butts, and an even more drastic drop on “Pork Picnic Trim” which is what we use for grinding our sausage, and for our “Pizza Bacon” (we cure, smoke, grind and cook our own bacon here for pizza)
I plan to purchase near 1 ton of trim at this cost and be a sausage making fool for a week and get it all frozen in 10 pound blocks to take advantage of this current drop.
I do not think it is lent causing this, anyone know why such a drop in cost?
Beef! Geez…
I saw over $7.00 for select grade ribeye, this week. I haven’t even look at choice grade because I do not need to pass out and hit my head on the floor right now.
4 years ago I was getting Prime Grade beef brisket for $1.69’ish, the stuff is near $4/LB for choice right now.
I traded cattle options for 10 years before 8 became a pizza man. We grind our own but with no freezer to take advantage of current stock. But I would not bet on lower cattle, they have culled the heard for years. Do you use bellies for bacon?
I do use bellies for our artisan bacon that we, cure, smoke, and sell by the pound raw,
But that is not what we do for our “Pizza Bacon” Because I see using expensive bellies as a waste of money for pizza toppings.
What we do for our pizza bacon is use “Pork Picnic Trim” the same stuff we use for our sausage, I’ll pull 10-20 pounds of that out of a case, cure/smoke it, then we grind it while still raw, then we bake it off in the oven until crisp. When its drained & cooled, we package it in 2# packages and pull it out of the freezer as needed. With the recent drop in prices, I see us doing several hundreds of pounds over the next few weeks to get stocked up big time so when the Memorial day price spike happens, we will be ahead of the game hopefully.
What grinder plate do you use?
[QUOTE=“GotRocks, post: 98138,
member: 4404”]
I do use bellies for our artisan bacon that we, cure, smoke, and sell by the pound raw,
But that is not what we do for our “Pizza Bacon” Because I see using expensive bellies as a waste of money for pizza toppings.
What we do for our pizza bacon is use “Pork Picnic Trim” the same stuff we use for our sausage, I’ll pull 10-20 pounds of that out of a case, cure/smoke it, then we grind it while still raw, then we bake it off in the oven until crisp. When its drained & cooled, we package it in 2# packages and pull it out of the freezer as needed. With the recent drop in prices, I see us doing several hundreds of pounds over the next few weeks to get stocked up big time so when the Memorial day price spike happens, we will be ahead of the game hopefully.
[/QUOTE]
Exact diameter of the holes? Maybe 1/4" or so, just a coarse grind, I use the same plate for our sausage.
I have the grinder head stuffed in the freezer right now, I’ll measure the holes and edit this post to get you exact dimensions a little later
@Home Town Pizza
I can PM you a decent midline pizza sausage formula if you’d like. I cannot share exactly what I use though
Even better, check out “Leggs” seasonings, http://www.aclegg.com/seasonings/
they sell seasoning packets for italian sausage that is decent, a friend of mine likes to mix 2 different blends for his sausage, he uses their regular and hot blended, it is good stuff,
my sausage formula would be considered very odd by most here due to the spices I use, and them not typically being associated with Italian Sausage. I went with a far northern italian sausage style crossed with a sicilian style. I fell upon it by accident by trying to duplicate a recipe from a place in Milwaukee, and making a batch of chorizo with a buddy of mine, there was a unique flavor component in the chorizo that I really liked, and I went a little wild one day and hit on my sausage formula just by screwing around.
There is a good amount of dry red wine in it.
I’ll take all the info I can get. Your sausage sounds delicious. (I spent a solid couple minutes trying to figure out another way to say that without it sounding weird with no luck.)
If I may ask what are you paying for bellies? Are their different grades of bellies? I recall reading an article on Neuske he claimed he purchased a certain grade of pork belly. It has been a goal of mine to smoke bellies for bacon. Any suggestions on a decent smoker that will smoke a couple hundred pounds of belly and some pulled pork every week. At this time spending a ton on a Southern Pride like smoker is not an option as I am not full fledged bbq.
I am currently seeing $1.99-$2.07 for fresh pork belly.
Pork is not graded like beef, but belly does come in #2 grade. That means it may be too thin, misshapen, cutting/trimming errors, etc etc etc
There is also skinned, or skinless. You’re going to want skinless for ease of prep.
curing bacon; Dry method
Per each pound of meat, I use 1.4 Grams of Cure #1, and .75 TBS of salt and white sugar. You can also add some pepper or other seasonings if you’d like, I really like a garlic cured bacon, and we also do Maple & honey cured by adding a few cups of honey or real maple syrup onto each belly
Measure your cure very accurately, this is toxic stuff, and not something to screw around with. 4 ounces is enough to cure 100 pounds of meat, so weigh it properly
Typically for each 5 pounds of meat, you can use 1 level tsp, but I still prefer weighing it on a scale that measure down to 1/10th of a gram.
Curing; The cure will penetrate at a rate of .25" each 24 hours. Typical belly thickness is fairly thin, so 5-7 days in the fridge. Rinse in cold water after its curing time is done, pat it dry.
Ya know, for starting to learn cold-smoking, and also doing pulled pork and such, I suggest an electric smoker made by Masterbuilt. You can set times and temps through digital controls. When I smoke bacon, I keep the temps under 100 degrees, and smoke for 26-48 hours. But you can do it faster just try to keep your internal temps under 145 so you do not render the fat.
More questions? Just ask.
I gotta run, need to get the BBQ pit filled with tomorrows product
I just started grinding my own own pork for my own killer sausage. I think this will be a money saver. (Buying low, freezing)
What do you guys pay per lb for your sausage? Making it yourselves vs. buying from distributor?
I’m paying 2.86 for a frozen bulk italian sausage that we really like. I just thaw, pinch onto a sheet pan, bake for 5 mins, then drain and store in a cambro until ready to top pizzas.
I am seeing $0.87/LB for the fresh pork picnic trim that we use,
I am currently seeing $2.85/LB-$3.29/LB for pre-made, raw, frozen.
So I figure with my labor and seasonings, I am a few cents either way of $1.00/LB
It is typically something I do personally, so labor is less. I may have a guy cut it for the grinder if someone needs something to do
Yes, Absolutely
we make it known that we do almost everything in house.
Pizza in this area is a really sad state of affairs
We are very different, almost opposite of what the other pizza shops around here do. We have a dominos, A Monicals, and a Papa-Murphy’s take & bake for franchise operations, An independent take & bake using pre-made crusts, and a few bars building with pre-made crusts. Our Pizza hut burned down a few years back, and decided to not rebuild.
We are promoting the pizza end of our offerings by word of mouth only since we are already well established on the BBQ side. And we do quite a bit of crossover with our BBQ meats on pizza.
There is only one other guy hand-stretching, the rest use a sheeter or get pre-made crusts.
The places that are using fresh sausage all buy the Fontanini brand from Sysco,
I’m the only guy in the area using whole-milk Mozz, there are other grande users here, but part-skim & blends are their preference.
And according to some local pizza fanatics, we’re the only one with anchovies available.
Oh, and the only other place that delivers is Dominos, there is no “Take-Out Taxi” or any other delivery services around here. I believe a take-out taxi would be very lucrative in summer, but the other 9 months would be a losing bet.
My original business plan was to employ a wood-fired oven for our pizza, that is still in the plans too. Lack of any outside funding at start-up killed the WFO idea. And now I am having issues with insurance by wanting a solid-fueled appliance in, or near the restaurant. It does not matter what the UL listings are, or NSF approved. The underwriters absolutely freak the hell out over solid fuel.
I’ll get my WFO eventually, but I think my next addition is going to be Gyro’s, since nobody has a decent Gyro in the area
We cook and grind our own, it’s a well known name (at least around here), get it frozen for $2.52/#. But once you factor in the waste (fat and moisture) that gets drained out, it’s about $3.37/#
What are you guys using for portioning?
Our large (16") gets 8 ounces of fresh sausage.
For those that cook their sausage before using it, what are you seeing for your yield,
Basically if you start with 1 pound, how much are you seeing in cooked weight?
GotRocks: We use 4oz on an 18" pie. Growing up in the NYC pizza world toppings were always sparse with the crust being the focus of the pie and topping compliment but never overpower. We put it on raw so I have no idea of the cooked weight. Walter