Homemade Sausage Making

Has anyone made their own poaching setup to thermostatically control the temperature of the water bath? I was thinking of running an electric hot plate on one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0057A ... PDKIKX0DER

Seems viable, but am wondering whether anyone on this forum has tried it.

Jeff

You need to be quiet and have a strong spotlight and shoot the tallest set of eyes, oops wrong kind of poaching.

I use a 18 quart Nesco Roaster full if water. It works perfect. It will hold about 10 lbs of ring bologna

I use a 6" deep full size steam table pan, such as shown here: http://www.webstaurantstore.com/6-deep- ... 70069.html which costs about $20 at a restaurant supply shop. I place it over 2 burners on my kitchen stove. Once the water is at the temperature I want, I find turning the gas burners down to their lowest settings keeps the water at the right temp. Of course, I monitor using a digital temp sensor with alarms set if it gets too hot.

Jeff, I can see the value of one of those controllers, particularly if precise temp management is critical for extended periods (many hours for fermentation, etc). Majority of my poaching requires no more than 30 minutes on the low end, and about 90 minutes for bigger items.

Because my needs don't really necessitate the use of a precision device such as the one you've listed, I get by simply monitoring water & meat temps with a maverick and taylor thermometer atop my vintage roaster:


Once the batch has been plunked into the large enameled basin, I'll simply insert one maverick probe into a chub or link, and monitor the IT until it hits the desired finished ready-to-pull temp:



This old westinghouse (built 1950) ready holds temps well. I can set the dial to approximately to 165-170°F & this roaster will hold the temp true for hours. Since most poaches are less than 30 minutes, I can have some confidence that the unit will perform its duty without too much babysitting.

I use a sous vide set-up for superior results, perfect every time....always plump, juicy and cooked perfectly (NO binders or fillers).

The unit I have is accurate to .01 degree C and calibrated with a reference thermometer.
http://freshmealssolutions.com/

There are less expensive, but also less accurate, options available.
http://www.amazon.com/DorkFood-DSV-Temp ... B0088OTON4

Thanks everybody! Great information. It seems I have some choices here...

- The Big Guy poaching method (I don't want to talk about that...I didn't know it was a deer I thought it was a revenuer!)
- Stove top w/alarm (I only have one thermometer with an alarm, and I use that for the meat,...now I'm wishing I had bought the dual probe model)
- Electric turkey roaster like the Nesco or Kevin's vintage unit
- Sous vide or similar controller on a crockpot or hot plate

I'm thinking the controller, because I could use it both for heating a small smoker with a hotplate, or poaching. So with the controller I get a twofer. Anybody use a controller on an electric hot plate to heat their smoker?