JHP Homestead’s Journal

[JHP Homestead]

Unfortunately our smoked sausage got cremated in the smoker. We started them in the evening and was planning on adding smoke until bed time, then just letting them gradually cook overnight, keeping the heat low so we didn’t melt out the fat.

It was fine when we went to bed but when we woke up, the smoker must have spiked temp badly overnight. It had an error code on the readout and the sausages were charred.

We just smoked a Boston butt overnight a few days ago, so I’m not sure what happened. I’m going to scrub it out good today then do a test run. We have a bunch of bacon and ham to smoke next weekend, so I need to make sure it’s working good.

 

[Mike CHS]

What is your smoker setup? You may have already posted but I don't recall.

 

[JHP Homestead]

What is your smoker setup? You may have already posted but I don't recall.

It’s a 30 inch Masterbuilt electric smoker. We just got it this past winter and have used it probably a dozen times without any problems.

 

[Baymule]

Aw that is terrible! I hope you get it figured out.

 

[Baymule]

I made your maple pan sausage last night, it was good! Thanks for the recipe!

 

[JHP Homestead]

I made your maple pan sausage last night, it was good! Thanks for the recipe!

Awesome. I’m glad you liked it!

 

[JHP Homestead]

Boy, this last week sure went by quick. DH and I got all the ham and bacon from Gert smoked, it turned out delicious. I’m not sure what happened to make the sausages get cremated, but the smoker worked fine two days in a row to smoke the bacon and ham. Guess we’ll just keep an eye on it.

Bacon!

Sliced ham for lunch meat:

In animal news, the chicks hatched by my silkie mix hen are doing good. She’s the best mother hen we’ve had by far. Our full silkie loves to sit on eggs but is a terrible mother once the eggs actually hatch. The fence in this picture is our “creep feeder” for the chicks, which the grown chickens can get into too, but they usually don’t bother.

I lost a young rabbit and was worried about Coccidiosis (I made a separate post about it), so we weaned and treated the other kits that age. Either it was a fluke death or we caught the Coccidiosis in time, because no others died.

The orphaned piglets are doing well. We’re working on weaning them now. Hoping to have them completely off the milk replacer by the time this bag is gone, which should be in a few days. They’ll be 4 weeks old this Sunday.

 

[AmberLops]

That bacon looks sooo good!
Good news about your piglets and your rabbits! Kits die pretty easily and usually it's for no real reason...they're pretty strange critters!

 

[Baymule]

That is a gorgeous pile of bacon and sliced ham! Yum!

 

[JHP Homestead]

We got our hay for the year! We are blessed to be able to buy hay from our neighbor across the street, which is very convenient. It still took a couple evenings to get it moved to our place, 8 bales at a time.

We are trying a different way of storing it this year. It seems like can’t find a good, convenient location and method of covering the hay, but I think this year we’re onto something.

We put it in one of the larger pastures, temporarily fenced off so the cows and horse can’t get it. It’s up on blocks and landscape timers to get of the ground, and covered with tarps. Once winter hits and we start feeding hay, the livestock gets locked into the dry lot, so we’ll be able to remove the temporary fencing for easier access. We’ll see how we like it come winter