Slicers and Sanitizers
 

Hi all -

I have a quick question about spray on, air dry sanitizer, such as this - http://www.webstaurantstore.com/32-o...47QUIKSAN.html

I've followed the directions, spraying on the sanitizer after cleaning the slicer, and allowing to air dry.

My question is this - at this point, do I just use the slicer next time, or would I need to rinse or wash it? I don't want the dried sanitizer to leave a weird taste or create other hazards.

Thanks
MPEDrummer

When I do my monthly 100 lbs of bacon, I start off with a clean, sanitized slicer (Hobart 1612). After 3-4 full bellies, I'll use the pop up tissue sanitizers to wipe everything down, then start again. After I'm through slicing, I breakdown the slicer and wash in HOT soapy water, then wipe down and let air dry. After I put everything back together I'll wipe the equipment down with a couple more of the popup tissues. I have some wire reinforced gloves and will hold the tissue down on a rotating blade, wiping front and back side down completely. If I stay with this routine, I'll know I've washed or cleaned/sanitized everything for next month orders. I'm not so sure I would use this solely by itself

Thanks!

Sorry for being unclear - I'm using the spray sanitizer after a breakdown and wash in hot soapy water, using a degreaser as necessary. I just wasn't sure if I should rinse off the dried sanitizer.

What are you doing with 100lbs a month of bacon? What else do you do? I ask because my wife and I are currently making 100-150lbs a month for family and friends, and looking to figure out if it's a viable thing to turn into a business. There's certainly a list of challenges to do this properly!

Wash, rinse, sanitize, air dry
Washing, rising or wiping sanitizer dry only negates the use of most sanitizers.

Thanks, backwards Chef Tony! Would you rinse before the next use, or just forge ahead?

I wouldn't rinse before use myself. Most of what's in sanitizers are some type of alcohol. It evaporates the instant you start applying it.

RE: 100 pounds of bacon. I've made bacon for myself since, oh, 2005. I would wind up giving some to friends and they would always tell me "you should sell this, it's so good". About 2 years ago, I decided to take them up on it and since about August of 2014 I've been doing at least 100 pounds of bacon a month. I sell only to friends or acquaintances, don't advertise, strictly by word of mouth. I have several people that buy an order of bacon every month. I don't sell it by the pound, I sell it by the full belly. That way I sell out each month with no leftover bacon. A full belly runs about 10 pounds +/- a pound. After curing for 9 days, I smoke it in two Masterbuilt 40's and a 6 rack Bradley. I like the smoke generated by the AMTS and hickory pellets better than the proprietary smoke generators. I sell the whole belly, sliced, with trimmings that are left over for $65 an order.

Awesome. We're currently doing something similar - friends and family with a wink and a nudge :). We're by-the-pound, and nearly always sell out, though this round is gonna cut it close. We just did our largest batch yet, 15 whole bellies, about 168lbs.

Are you hot smoking in those, or cold? We've been hot smoking, but cooling is becoming a hassle as we've scaled up. Currently, we crash-cool in an ice bath, and it's completely adequate, but a pain in the butt, so we've started researching cold-smoking - no heat in means no heat out.

There are definite drawbacks - Amazing Ribs has a pretty detailed rant against it, though I *think* Meathead means cold-smoking for curing, as opposed to cold-smoking for flavor.

Rhetorical question - is it ok to thread-jack myself? :)

OK, shutting up before I geek out on bacon and overwhelm you.

Can't overwhelm me with bacon talk. Biggest batch I've done was around 150 lbs. Took 2 days to accomplish (before I got the Masterbuilts) Almost all mine is done cold smoke. In the wintertime I'll put the burners on to maintain around 1300
Hot smoking seems to dry out and partially cook/render the bacon and I don't want that. I have a dedicated reefer that continually has a nice smoky aroma:heh: and soon as I take the bellies out of the smokers, they go in the reefer for a couple of days to get completely chilled, then I roll out the Hobart and start slicing. My wife will bag them and vacuum seal them then which really saves me some time.

Bacon nerds, unite!

That sounds very similar to our setup - I slice, she packs.

We have two dedicated chest freezers now - the big one has an external thermocouple that lets us run at 36° during curing. We've found that ~24°F is the perfect balance between "not frozen" and getting the cleanest cuts, without much fat smear, so we drop it down for the chilling before slicing, then drop the target temp to freeze things up.

How long do you smoke for? I just got my AMZN tube last week, haven't gotten the hang of it completely, but I have a belly in cure to experiment with this weekend. I'm hoping to cut it into chunks, and smoke one chunk 2 hrs, one for 3, etc., to shorten the learning curve if I can.

I never sanitizer, even before reusing. It all evaporates. The product you linked to is a premixed solution, so the strength should be correct. Most sanitizers (tablets or concentrates) have a ppm range and you can buy test strips to make sure it is in the safe range of use, not too strong or too weak.
And yes, some would consider me a little backwards or a lot depending on who you ask.

I run the refrigerator at around that same temp. I'll put the smoked bellies in, then crank it down to almost freezing to quick chill. The next day I usually will put 4-5 bellies in the freezer section to get them nice and frosty. As I pull a belly out to slice, I'll put another in from the refrigerator side and so on.

The tube smoker is the schnitts. If it's a 6 inch smoker, a full tube will last me around 4.5 hours. I have a 12 inch that fits in the Masterbuilts that will give a good 6 hours of smoke. Thing about using the tuber smoker is to make sure the pellets are fully lit and blazing before putting in the smoker. I'll let it burn for a couple of minutes, then blow out the flame and put it in the smoker. I use a full size propane torch to light the pellets.

Thanks - I got the 12", and it sounds like I'm getting about the same time out of it - I think it was about 5.5hrs on the first two attempts. I'm getting white smoke, though, an attempt at smoking pecans (don't want to risk bacon yet!) came out rather bitter.

Still, rather optimistic about it. Cold smoking will solve our cooling problems. If we end up going legit, we'll need to Frankenstein a cold smoker and Coolbot into a single beastie. No, really. FDA Food Code says that cold smoked product that is sealed in a vacuum for packaging must be kept at 41° or below for the entire process, including the smoking. And, joy of joys, it requires a HACCP plan. Rather irritatingly, the Food Code doesn't specify temperature requirements for cold-smoked meat that is NOT sealed in a vacuum at the end.

But that's another thread. :)

Bacon
 

I do the same thing for my bacon. The only real difference is I started hot smoking it and now I do cold smoking. I am also asked to sell my bacon and hams but I have yet to do it. I raise my own hogs (Berkshires) and up until now I have not been able to produce a lot of bacon. Even now I could not do more than 400lbs of bacon a year off my own pigs. I live in TN and it is difficult to find raw pork bellys.

I have also been afraid to sell without creating an LLC. Thoughts?

Nick

That's exactly what we're trying to figure out. It gets really complex, really fast, if you're not a farmer, at least in Pennsylvania. We're classified as a value-added food processor, or at least we will be when legal.

Local and federal regulations have to be followed for different reasons - for example, if we sell direct to consumers (not grocers or restaurants) we can get by with approval from the local Health Department only. This is what we're pursuing. If we want to sell to restaurants, or ship across state lines, then we need USDA approval, which is an entirely different kettle of fish. Some parts of our process (vacuum packaging, for example) may also invoke the federal-level regulations.

We're trying to figure out the pounds per year that makes it worth it. It may simply be too difficult to achieve at the low output we expect. Many federal regulations are written in terms of tons per day - and we MIGHT hit a ton in a full year, if things go well :)

From what we can tell, we can establish an LLC whenever we feel like, but getting liability insurance is impossible without health department certification.

So, onward with the research. I'd love to keep posting on here, updating as we learn and have more questions :)

Thanks for the feedback. I live in TN and I will look into it here and see what they have to say. It is a hobby for me but I would like to make enough to buy better equipment to make life easier.