Grillinski
Knows what a fatty is.
I discovered the world of fatties a few months ago. I’m now addicted to fatties.
I realized right away that there seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to fatties, solid log of simple sausage… and overstuffed with goodies.
Maybe its cause I am still in my first year of making fatties and I haven’t gotten over my initial kick, but right now, I am definitely an overstuffed guy. I love the idea of being able to stuff a fattie with whatever I can think of and lots of it! As my good friend Grillvuzzo once said….they are a blank canvas waiting to be painted.
It didn’t take long for me to discover that getting a good amount of stuffing in a fattie could be a challenge and if it wasn’t done correctly it could result in a blow out… good stuffing in the drip pan, and a slightly deflated log of sausage (which may be a little disappointing at first glance, but still perfectly delicious).
After several fatties and a lot of thinking I came up with the idea for the “Fattie Piston”. A little device that can make stuffing over-stuffed fatties a snap. So far it has worked flawlessly. Let me know what you guys think:
The fattie piston starts out with the cylinder. This is nothing more than a short length of 2”PVC pipe. It works perfect.
The second element is the piston head. To test out my idea for the fattie piston, I cut my first piston head out of plywood. I realize this probably isn’t the best material to make a fattie with, but this is a prototype. I plan on cutting a few new piston heads out of UHMPV or some similar plastic when I get the chance. I used a hole saw that was slightly bigger than the diameter I needed to cut the initial biscuit. Then I put a screwdriver through the hole and let it spin against a drum sander in order to keep it perfectly round and sand it to the right diameter. It fits perfectly inside the PVC cylinder… it shouldn’t be tight.
Thirdly I needed a shaft to attach the piston head to. I went down in my basement to get a piece of doll rod or broom stick from the pile of scraps under my work bench when noticed my target bow hanging on the wall. I instantly realized that one of the carbon v-bar stabilizer rods would work perfectly for my Fattie Piston shaft. It already had a lug in one end and it self-threaded perfectly into the piston head. Plus, it is super light weight and the harmonic dampening properties of the graphite would make it ideal for the application. In fact, unless your fattie stuffing device has a high modulus carbon shaft, It shouldn’t really be called a “Fattie Piston”.
So that’s my fattie piston, I made it in about 20 min. Here how it works:
The first thing I do is heat up the stuffing I plan on putting into the fattie. In the case of this first fattie, I caramelized some onions and sautéed some left over diced ham. Once these ingreadiance were hot, I mixed in a good bit of shredded cheddar cheese. I mix it together till the cheese melts and I get a hot gooey mess….yum.
I then lay down a piece of saran wrap on the counter and set the cylinder upright on top of it. (Sorry for the quality of these next few pics. My fingers were gooey and I was in a hurry. ) Next, I spoon the filling into the PVC cylinder. I use the piston to pack it down and push any air out. When you do this it is important to push down on the cylinder or else the filling will squirt out the bottom.
Once the cylinder is full I make sure it’s packed tight, then saran wrap the other end. Into the refrigerator it goes until the contents of the cylinder are cold.
Once the cylinder is cold, I roll out the sausage onto a piece of saran wrap. I then take the Fattie Piston and using the shaft and piston head, push the now solid log of stuffing out onto the sausage. The log is very solid and perfectly round. This makes rolling a perfect fattie almost effortless. Just pick up the saran wrap and wrap ¾ of the way around, re-grip and pull some saran wrap back and roll the rest of the way.
It is hard to believe how easy it is to roll a perfect uniform fattie when you are doing it around a perfectly round solid log of stuffing.
After that, I coat it with a rub and back in the fridge for an hour.
Here are a few pics of another fattie I did that night. This was a Philly cheese steak fattie with moz, a grilled rib eye, onion, and pepper. Again you can see how solid and round the log turned out.
Here is the final photo of these fatties after smoking for 2 hours. I’ve had no blow outs!
I realized right away that there seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to fatties, solid log of simple sausage… and overstuffed with goodies.
Maybe its cause I am still in my first year of making fatties and I haven’t gotten over my initial kick, but right now, I am definitely an overstuffed guy. I love the idea of being able to stuff a fattie with whatever I can think of and lots of it! As my good friend Grillvuzzo once said….they are a blank canvas waiting to be painted.
It didn’t take long for me to discover that getting a good amount of stuffing in a fattie could be a challenge and if it wasn’t done correctly it could result in a blow out… good stuffing in the drip pan, and a slightly deflated log of sausage (which may be a little disappointing at first glance, but still perfectly delicious).
After several fatties and a lot of thinking I came up with the idea for the “Fattie Piston”. A little device that can make stuffing over-stuffed fatties a snap. So far it has worked flawlessly. Let me know what you guys think:
The fattie piston starts out with the cylinder. This is nothing more than a short length of 2”PVC pipe. It works perfect.
The second element is the piston head. To test out my idea for the fattie piston, I cut my first piston head out of plywood. I realize this probably isn’t the best material to make a fattie with, but this is a prototype. I plan on cutting a few new piston heads out of UHMPV or some similar plastic when I get the chance. I used a hole saw that was slightly bigger than the diameter I needed to cut the initial biscuit. Then I put a screwdriver through the hole and let it spin against a drum sander in order to keep it perfectly round and sand it to the right diameter. It fits perfectly inside the PVC cylinder… it shouldn’t be tight.
Thirdly I needed a shaft to attach the piston head to. I went down in my basement to get a piece of doll rod or broom stick from the pile of scraps under my work bench when noticed my target bow hanging on the wall. I instantly realized that one of the carbon v-bar stabilizer rods would work perfectly for my Fattie Piston shaft. It already had a lug in one end and it self-threaded perfectly into the piston head. Plus, it is super light weight and the harmonic dampening properties of the graphite would make it ideal for the application. In fact, unless your fattie stuffing device has a high modulus carbon shaft, It shouldn’t really be called a “Fattie Piston”.
So that’s my fattie piston, I made it in about 20 min. Here how it works:
The first thing I do is heat up the stuffing I plan on putting into the fattie. In the case of this first fattie, I caramelized some onions and sautéed some left over diced ham. Once these ingreadiance were hot, I mixed in a good bit of shredded cheddar cheese. I mix it together till the cheese melts and I get a hot gooey mess….yum.
I then lay down a piece of saran wrap on the counter and set the cylinder upright on top of it. (Sorry for the quality of these next few pics. My fingers were gooey and I was in a hurry. ) Next, I spoon the filling into the PVC cylinder. I use the piston to pack it down and push any air out. When you do this it is important to push down on the cylinder or else the filling will squirt out the bottom.
Once the cylinder is full I make sure it’s packed tight, then saran wrap the other end. Into the refrigerator it goes until the contents of the cylinder are cold.
Once the cylinder is cold, I roll out the sausage onto a piece of saran wrap. I then take the Fattie Piston and using the shaft and piston head, push the now solid log of stuffing out onto the sausage. The log is very solid and perfectly round. This makes rolling a perfect fattie almost effortless. Just pick up the saran wrap and wrap ¾ of the way around, re-grip and pull some saran wrap back and roll the rest of the way.
It is hard to believe how easy it is to roll a perfect uniform fattie when you are doing it around a perfectly round solid log of stuffing.
After that, I coat it with a rub and back in the fridge for an hour.
Here are a few pics of another fattie I did that night. This was a Philly cheese steak fattie with moz, a grilled rib eye, onion, and pepper. Again you can see how solid and round the log turned out.
Here is the final photo of these fatties after smoking for 2 hours. I’ve had no blow outs!
