Oklahoma Joe's Highland Reverse Flow Smoker BBQ

The ash drop bucket rusted off of my Ol’ Blue Wood Fired BBQ Grill that I’ve had for decades. The lid handle and wheels sun baked off a decade ago. The wind threw it off the 14 foot high rock slope in my back yard and cracked the porcelain lid coating a decade ago. She's not being thrown out. I cut the bottom out of a Christmas popcorn tin and laid it over the hole.

Ol' Blue

I’ve been looking at Offset BBQ/Smokers for years. Call me cheap, but I would not buy one until I needed a new wood fired BBQ. I looked at the biscuit and pellet BBQ/Smokers. They don’t add as much smoke flavor as I like because they burn so clean. 

I don’t like the taste of burned propane gas in my food. Yes, Ethyl Mercaptan has a smell when it is burned and makes food stink. Even the propane companies are looking for a new safety additive that doesn’t burn dirty or stinky. 35 years ago I had a gas smoker that was given to me and I gave away after the 1^st use.

So, a new chapter begins after much research and deliberation. I bought at Oklahoma Joe’s Highland Reverse Flow Wood BBQ Smoker at Flagstaff Sportsman’s Warehouse and the storage cover. It was fully assembled and four employees removed the smoke stack and laid it down on a packing blanket in the bed of the Power Wagon. 

The directions for seasoning the BBQ, say, to brush down the interior (un-painted) surfaces with vegetable oil. It looked like it had already been coated so I didn’t bother. We washed the grills instead of leaving them in the BBQ as directed by Oklahoma Joe’s.

I took my Stihl Battery Chainsaw MSA 120 into my back acreage to harvest a 5 gallon bucket of dead mesquite. 4200 feet in elevation is near the highest level that it grows in Arizona. About 10% of my 200 trees are mesquite.

I loaded most of it in the offset basket and lit a pile of fine mesquite twigs with larger twigs on top that I put on the access door side of the basket. For years, I've used an electric starter to start Ol’ Blue. I never use paper or starter fluid.

I was happy to see that the mesquite in the offset was able to bring the temperature of the grill, after going around the reverse flow pans, to 475*F. I would probably never cook at that level, but it tells me that it works very well and I won’t need to use tons of wood. I saw door clamps installed on some reverse flow smokers. It doesn’t look like they will be needed on the Oklahoma Joe's Highland Reverse Flow Smoker. It's fairly air tight already. The hinge side of the door is where some smoke was escaping.

I saw several reviews with pictures of the paint peeling off from the heat. I’m not sure why they don’t use Stove Paint. Well, like everyone else, the paint on the top of the offset peeled completely off.

So, Instead of sniveling, I removed the warming shelf and handle.

I cleaned the damaged paint off and painted it with Stove Paint that everyone that heats their home with wood stoves in the back-country already has.

It took me 30 minutes total and is a little more flat – luster than the factory paint, but it will stay on.

Where I live, when you buy a new rifle you skim and pillar bed the action, float the barrel, replace the trigger and mount a scope on it that cost more than the rifle.

We bought a brand new Power Wagon 4X4 6.4 Hemi 2500 Truck 3 years ago, replaced the tires with real off-road tires and sold the factory supplied shoes to a flat-lander with a mall-crawler who writes an article in a major magazine about the great tires he got for 20% off.

I give the Oklahoma Joe's Highland Reverse Flow Smoker a 5 Star Rating and will recommend it to my friends. And, when they taste the table fare from it they’ll be buying one too when their Ol’ Blue breaks.

I could have bought or made a similar BBQ/Smoker Reverse flow, but it would have been double or more the cost.

Smoking Javelina Jalapeno Sausage 1st in 2019

Archery Javelina hunting in Arizona is a blast. It happens in January and you have to have an Arizona hunting license and a big game permit tag that has to be applied for ahead and drawn for. There are leftover permits in some areas, so we were lucky this year to get a second tag for a different archery hunt. Javelina are not feral hogs that currently do not live in Arizona. I want to someday go to Texas to hunt them.

The archery season this year started out with 9 inches of wet snow in both of our hunting areas. It was slippery but every track can be seen from a long ways off through good optics.

I am lucky to have a loving wife who for my 60^th Birthday bought me a Swarovski STX spotting scope, Gitzo Traveler tripod and a Manfrotto MHXPRO-2W fluid head. She also years ago bought me a pair of Leica Ultravid 10X42 BL way before all the high definition and built in range finders. I bought an Outdoorsmans brand quick release Binocular Tripod Adapter and a stud that goes on my binos.

Don’t be tricked by Vortex hype. People who love Vortex haven’t looked through good glass or are too cheap; it’s not their fault. I bought a Rem 700 LR 30-06 for a fair price considering the Nightforce Picatinny 20MOA rail and 30mm rings. Now I have a Vortex Viper 4-16x44 that has glass about as good as my Simmons 8 point that is on a 22LR. For a 30mm tube it has an eye box that is pathetic. You can’t harvest what you can’t see. The rifle now has a Leupold Mark 5HD 3.6-18x44 TMR Illum and went from 1 to ½ MOA.

I have a couple of rifles with Nightforce ATACR  5-25 x 56 F1 MIL-R Illum scopes that are in a league of amazing. I just bought a Sig Sauer Tango 3-12X42 MRAD Illum for my Areo Presicion Enhanced AR 338 Federal that I haven’t even plumbed to the mount. It has a generous eye box and is perfect for the 400 yards caliber; and yes, it is foreign made that doesn’t pretend to be made in the USA.

Eberlestock packs fit more people like a glove and make weight feel like ½ of what you’re carrying. Just remember though, “Every Ounce Counts”. "Go in light, come out heavy". The rule of thumb is 1/3 your peak body weight or less and no more than 50% even on flat ground. I hunt at 25% total gear including firearm. Packing out with Leki trekking poles I’ll go 45% max on the 1^st trip at 3 miles or less. My adult son goes 30% and 50% with a couple of 65% elk head only pack outs. I cannot do that any more. 20 years ago I did a 200 pounds of meat for a half mile on flat ground. We de-bone everything and don’t leave any meat like a lot of guides and hunters do. Those tough cuts make great sausage.

This is my son with a nocked arrow ready for the downed boar Javelina to charge. If a Javelina is not cold stoned dead it is dangerous. Just before passing they have gotten up and charged. This goes for elk, deer and even a turkey that all try to get away and then pile up. Approach them from behind slowly while watching and listening for anything. A final poke of the eye is a great idea, but my grandfather was hospitalized by a bull elk that got up after being poked in the eye. He was kicked several times, gored and batted 30 feet by the antlers of the bull elk attempting escape.

Proper field care of the meat is essential to great tasting table fare. Note the use of nitrile gloves during the skinning process to keep sweat oils, dirt on the skin and fur off of your hands so you don’t get it on the meat. I sock skin Javelina before I even gut them. When working on field dressing a bull elk I will go through 6 pairs of nitrile gloves. I’ve been told ten thousand times that wild animals are gamy. That is people who hang meat with the skin on, cross contaminate the meat with musk from the fur, don’t properly cool the meat, hang the meat too long or hang the meat around contaminates.

I have a buddy that hangs deer and beef in a freezing barn in Minnesota with his combine harvester and diesel truck. His wife won’t eat the bitter “Gamy” meat. She tells everyone that Arizona meat is fantastic tasting and she hates corn fed Minnesota meat. She thought their stores imported the beef meat from other states besides Minnesota.

The 2019 Javelina Jalapeno Sausage recipe: (1st 6A boar)

13.75 pounds of fine ground Javelina

1/4 Cup - Sea Salt Ground

1/4 Cup - Black Pepper Ground

1/2 Cup - Onion Powder

1/8th Cup - Paprika Powder

1 at 12 ounce jalapeno's including liquid (Hatch brand)

1/3 Cup - Fresh Minced Garlic (1 Head)

1/4 cup garlic powder (not garlic salt)

2 pounds Mild Cheddar Grated Cheese

2 @ 1 oz packets of Ground Cumin (Tampico)

2 @ 1 oz packets of Ground Mexico Oregano (El Guapo)

1 oz packet of Ground New Mexico Molino Red Chili (El Guapo)

Tampico, Mojave and El Guapo are all great quality and can be ordered online if not available in your local grocery store.

I am using LEM Clear Fibrous 1 ½” X 12” casings. Six thick slices of the 1 ½” diameter sausage cover the bread with lettuce, red onion, mustard and tomato for a scrumptious sandwich.  

Start soaking your casings in warm water. Mix all the spices in a food blender, and then pour over the fine ground meat and cheese. Mix very well, stuff the casings and put it in the refrigerator for at least a day for the spices to hydrate and blend.

LEM 5 Pounds Stuffer wing nut attached to an old cutting board that I put 2“ rubber feet. The wing nuts spin off for easy cleaning and storage of the smoker.

   

Now the smoking;

I did not preheat the smoker. After loading the cold raw sausage in the Masterbuilt 30” Digital Electric Smoker. Top vent ½ open and no water in tray.

Started at 10:28 Temp = 160*F and set the time for 7 hours. One scoop of maple wood chips and one of apple. 

At 11:43 added ½ scoop apple and ½ scoop mesquite.

At 12:52 added 1 scoop maple.

Pulled the sausage at 4:00 PM at 5 ½ hours of smoking.

Cooling the sausage on cookie racks. Cooling them horizontal and turning them over a few times seems to allow the moisture to evenly absorb back into every inch of the sausage. 

Smoked Javelina Mexican Red Pepper Sausage 2/16/18

Yesterday we stuffed seven LEM 1 ½”X12” Fibrous Casings for today’s smoking. We ran out of casings so we improvised; Javelina Luncheon Loaf was an easy solution.

I don’t like having an empty rack when running the smoker. The easy solution was my wife bought a 6 ½ pound pork shoulder roast at the grocers.

We used yellow mustard with no spices on the pork roast to create a layer that will lock in the moisture. After pressing the remaining sausage mix into the glass bread loaf pans we put a layer of mustard over the top too.

At 4:54 pm we started the smoker set at 150*F with 2 trays of maple wood chips on top of about 2 trays of left over chips from yesterday’s smoking with the vent on top open.

At 5:30 pm I put another tray of maple chips in because the leftover chips had already turned to ash.

At 6:20 pm I put another tray of maple chips and raised the temperature to 170*F. The roast was not getting enough heat to seal the mustard glaze.

At 8:00 pm I raised the temperature to 180*F. At 8:30 I went to 190*F.

It looked like the sausage and luncheon loaves were tolerating the increased temperature so at 10:30 I raised it to 200*F

At 11:12 pm I pulled the sausage and increased the temperature to 225*F. The luncheon loaves and roast need the extra temp to glaze the mustard.

At 12:18 am I pulled the loaves and at 1:15 I pulled the pork roast. Total smoking time is 8 hours 21 minutes. There is no burned "bark" layer because I controlled the temperature. The pork meat is cooked well done, tender, smoke infused and juicy. The internal temperature is 187*F.

In northern Arizona the Javelina’s like to hang out in huge forests of cat claw brushes also known as Wait-A-Minute bushes. The bushes have 2 hooked thorns attached at 90* about every inch with the next set rotated 120*. The claws do not pull off very easily like roses or black berries. The hogs can hear anything coming and can easily tell the sound of your clothing being shredded.

This is a very angry sow that is just about to charge and tried to cut me with her razor sharp teeth. I wear gators to protect me from the cat claw, but they can also save you from Javelina attacks.

Smoked Javelina Mexican Red Pepper Sausage 2/15/18

Three days later, we stuffed ½ of a stand of LEM 21mm Smoked Collagen Edible Casings with 5 ½ pounds of Javelina sausage. They are the diameter of hot dogs, don’t need to be soaked and are Edible. Fibrous casing are not edible, these are like natural casings. Our big learning is that our LEM 5 pound stuffer did not come with a ½” OD 3/8 ID stuffer tube. We used Paracord to lash a 3/8^th ID stuffer tube from our meat grinder onto the end of a larger tube the make it happen. I ordered a stainless steel tube from LEM with an assorted bunch of casings.  

 While we did the links we soaked the 15 LEM Fibrous Casings we had left. We stuffed 8 of the LEM Fibrous Clear 1 1/2 “ by 12” non-edible casings for tonight’s smoke. We filled the Masterbuilt Electric Smoker and started it at 5:30 pm set at 140*F with the upper vent closed, 2 trays of apple and 2 trays of maple wood chips. I just set the time at 6 hours to let the smoker start.

 While the smoker is running we stuffed the other 7 sticks of 1 ½” by 12” clear casings that will go into the smoker tomorrow.

At 8:00 I raised the temperature to 150*F and added a tray of maple wood chips.

I pulled everything at 10:30, for a total time of smoking at 5 hours. The links in the edible collagen casing were perfect. The sausage in the non-edible fibrous casings had a little water separation in them that soaked back up as they cooled.

Smoked Javelina Mexican Red Pepper Sausage 2/12/18

We both got our Javelina with our bows during the Arizona HAM (handgun, archery or muzzleloader) hunt. We bought left over tags for this hunt. They were in a huge area of Catsclaw bushes. We packed them back to the truck and were back at home within 10 minutes where we had Juniper trees to hang them in for field dressing.

22 Pounds of Javelina ground with a 3/16” disk

4 Pounds Grated Cheddar Cheese

3 oz Mexican Oregano Dried Ground (Tampico brand)

1 oz Mexican Cumin Dried Ground (El Guapo brand)

¾ oz Cilantro Dried Ground (McCormick brand)

¼ cup Black Pepper Ground (McCormick brand)

1/8 cup White Pepper Ground (McCormick brand)

1/3 cup Cayenne Red Pepper Dried Ground (Watkins brand)

1/8 cup Dark Chili Powder (Kroger brand)

1 oz Arbol Chili Powder Dried (El Guapo brand)

1 cup Dried Garlic Powder (McCormick brand)

1 cup Dried Onion Powder (McCormick brand)

16 oz Pickled Sliced Jalapeno pureed in food processor (Mezzetta brand)

4 cups Crushed Ice

1 cups Water RO

¼ cup Molasses (Grandma’s brand)

½ cup Sea Salt Fine Ground

1 cup Sugar Raw

We ground the sea salt, cilantro, black pepper and red pepper to a powder with a small blade type coffee, spices and nut grinder. Then blended all the dried spices together in the Hamilton Beech Big Mouth Food Processor with the cutting blade so it is all mixed together and there were no clumps. We poured the spice mix into a bowl and put the pickled sliced jalapeños and juice in the processor. When it was pureed we added the spices in with the molasses, ice and water to rehydrate the dried powder.

In a huge 2 foot diameter stainless steel bowl we put all the ground meat and then spooned the spices mix evenly over the top. We hand mixed the meat and spices for about 5 minutes until everything looked very well mixed. Then we sprinkled the grated cheese over the meat mix and mixed it for another couple of minutes. It is late at night so the mix went back into the plastic storage containers and back into the refrigerator.

Base for LEM Sausage Stuffer

Our LEM 5 # Sausage Stuffer has to be gripped very tightly and still moves around when turning the handle to stuff casings. It comes with "C" clamps that would be great if we had a thin counter to fasten it on to.

The solution is to build a removable base that cleans up easily and is food friendly. 

I used an old wood cutting board that my mother-in-law let stay wet too long and warped it lengthwise. She gave it to me because she knows I recycle or refurbish all kinds of things. 

Well I found the perfect new life and purpose for the damaged board. I knew that because the bottom of the stuffer is flat that the stuffer would need to be elevated above the arched board to make it solid. I also needed to put skids under the ends to made it work on a flat counter. Skids move so I bought rubber non-skid feet for $1.50 at Wal-Mart. 

The skids are 1X3 select pine scraps from another project. I put Elmer’s Wood Glue on the ends and used my brad nailer to attach it to the cutting board then I put short brads in the gun and shot the sticky backed non-skids pads to the skids.

Well then I looked in my scrap nuts and bolts and looked for a set of 4 bolts with wing-nuts that would spin in the clear of the stuffer base for easy attachment and removal. I found a set of 4 commercial electrical section panel door seal-able studs. The holes in the stuffer are way larger than the studs, but the hex nuts are crowned perfectly to center the holes when the wing-nuts are tightened down finger tight. Awesome!!!!

Total cost is a couple bucks when you add the brads, glue and cutting board sealing oil. Everything else was just collecting dust.

After the glue dries, I'll seal the new base with cutting board edible grade mineral oil for easy clean-up the next time I use the stuffer. We have Javelina tags for a HAM (handgun, archery and muzzleloader) hunt coming up in a couple weeks, so it won't be long.

2nd Half of Javelina Sausage 1-8-18

The 2nd Half of Javelina Cheese Jalapeno Sausage was done on Monday 1-8-18 was smoked by my wife. My son helped her stuff the LEM 1 1/2" by 12" fibrous clear casings that we picked up at Sportsman's Warehouse on Sunday along with a bag of Maple Smoker Wood Chips. We never use pellets because they contain fillers and binders that can taste gross.

At 11:47 she started the smoker. I was at work when she got the smoker out, filled the shelves with the freshly stuffed sausage, put in 1 tray of Maple Chips and 1 of Apple Chips. She cold started the smoker set at 155*F and set the time for 6 hours. The VENT is Closed. My wife had finished sausage smokes, but had only done ribs and salmon smokes at 225*F by herself that we leave the vent closed some times.

I worked my normal amount of hours this week so my wife did the whole smoking by herself. She likes the electric smoker because it is easy and very predictable.

At 12:47 she added a mixed tray of 1/2 maple and 1/2 apple chips. It was not smoking very much so she checked it at 1:10 and removed the bayonet tray for 10 minutes and saw the chips pile start glowing in the middle and saw smoke rolling out of the closed vent.

At 2:06 she added another mixed tray of maple and apple but left the bayonet out until the chips where glowing. With the upper vent closed there wasn't enough air flow to get oxygen to the chips, so they go out at lower smoking temperatures. I found at 200*F+ the smoker cycles the burner on more often so this is not an issue. When making sausage I like the lower settings.

At 5:10 she pulled the sausage that was perfectly done. This is the 1st lime we used maple and it really complemented the apple.

We let the sausage cool on the counter for a couple hours and then Zip-Lock bag it in the refrigerator over night. Then we vacuum seal each stick and freeze it. 

When we thaw out a stick it is usually gone in a couple of days, so I really don't know how long it will last in the refrigerator. I will make a sandwich with the sausage that will be in my pack for over 6 hours at moderate or cool weather. I never try it in hot weather. I don't use Nitrate or Nitrites so my old school historic recipe cannot be left on the counter for years. My style of salt/sugar cure tastes better and is better for you than the Prague Powder cure.

I want to shift gears and give Kudos to a hunting buddy of mine that did Javelina Sausage in an old school charcoal smoker. Here is a quote from his email to me:

“I'm making 16 lbs of sausage this weekend with the remains of lasts years javelina. I did not have that much meat so I ended up with a mix if 2/3 javelina and 1/3 pork butt. This is the first time I have used a dual temperature probe for smoking. I really like it. It's a Therm Pro. Having the remote sure is handy especially dealing with a smoker that uses charcoal.”

He did 6 pounds of my sausage recipe and 5 pounds of another recipe that looked good on the web. He did not put cheese in the sausage because he was using a mix of Javelina and domesticated pork that has fat in it. He did the remainder 5 pounds into breakfast sausage. He used natural pork casings so they are about 1” diameter.

We had some discussion about Natural versus Fibrous casings. I have been using the fibrous casing since I started this Blog because I want larger sized sausage sticks. The natural casings are for Slim Jim's, Hot Links, Hot Dogs Brats and Kielbasa. A big difference is that natural casings are edible and fibrous are not. 

Years ago I bought sheep's casing at our local grocery store and made Elk Hot Links. I did not over soak or under soak the casings and used an very old Oster meat grinder to stuff them so over pressure was not an issue. They split open about every foot. I made them work and finished the sausage. They did not smell or look strange. I had used natural casings before without issue and used other natural casing after that too. My only thought for learning would be that the casings were very old. Make sure you use casing bought from a place that sells lots of quality casings. 

The cheese in my sausage recipe tastes great but also acts as a binder with the No Fat wild game meats. If you don't use any fat with Javelina, Elk and Deer meat your sausage will be crumby. Most Arizona Deer and Elk have a small layer of fat across their backs. You can save that fat and use it when making sausage or add thick grated cheese.

We went to Nebraska a couple of years ago and found that because of the very harsh winters these deer thrive in they store fat, lots of fat. When I am talking about no fat game meat I am talking about Arizona big game. Even our Kaibab mule deer don't have the 3 inch thick layers of fat the Nebraska eastern whitetail deer have. Arizona elk and deer have the ability to migrate to lower less severe wintering areas. They may see -20*F for a couple of weeks but rarely have months of deep snow to dig through for food or eat bark and twigs.

Speaking of winter temperatures in Arizona. I live at 4100 feet elevation in northern Arizona at noon today we are seeing 56*F with a low this morning of 42*F. I don't ever remember a January that is this warm. We watched the New York Times Square New Years Eve Ball Drop with the coldest temperatures ever recorded.