smitty55

So I just looked that up on Google Maps. How close to the Rockies are you? Looks like you're only 55km away.

That was really well done, kudos.

That does sound good Dougie. Unfortunately I had a brain cramp and forgot that I sold my pressure canner 6 or 7 years back as I was never using it. I do have a pressure cooker that I do use but it only has a weight and I don't know for sure what pressure it functions at, I assume it's at 10psi but without knowing for sure it's hard to know what cooking time I should use. Besides it's not very big and doesn't have anything I could rest jars on at the right height. Oh well.

Hmmm, I never considered canning smoked fish, it's pretty well cooked when it comes out of the smoker and pressure canning would cook them even more. I guess it would have to spend less time in the smoker. I do have a pressure canner but I think I'll stick to freezing and vacuum sealing my excess for now.

I used to do a lot more trout fishing and back in the day you used to be able to buy frozen whole Lake Trout, Pink Salmon and Whitefish in any grocery store so I used to do a lot of smoking fish. The best of the bunch though was the 13 years I worked at First Air where I could get fresh caught and frozen Char shipped for free from up north for crazy good prices, at the beginning I think it was like $3lb. In the winter they still had the guts in them as they froze so fast out on the ice after being caught or netted. Best smoked fish I've ever had by far. I would also cut nice thick steaks off the frozen fish and put them on the grill, they were so good. That Sockeye would be real good too if it was available, otherwise I did find some in BC but with shipping it was quite pricey. In the meantime I still really liked what I did up last week, no complaints at all even though it was farmed.

It's that time again to give my Big Chief smoker a good work out. A couple of weeks back both Atlantic Salmon and Steelhead trout were on sale at half price for $10/lb and it's been a too long time since I did fish so I couldn't resist, best birthday gift I could give myself. Around 7-8 lbs. Put them in the freezer as frozen fish smokes better and took them out a couple days back. Made a gallon of brine yesterday and they spent the night in the spare fridge in two pots. Took them out at noon, patted them dry and the 29 pieces completely filled the five racks. After running a fan on them for an hour they developed a nice shiny, sticky pellicle and then it's that time to go outside for a 6 hour smoke I figure, maybe a bit less for the thinner pieces. Wood chips of choice is Cherry. This is where the fixed 160 degree temp comes in perfect for smoking fish at low temps over a longer period. The last couple of hours I will be brushing them with maple syrup for an extra sweet treat. This is going to be oh so good. EDIT: I was way off on my time guess. Between a windy cool day and water in my drip tray which I don't normally do at six hours the fish was still mushy so I did the syrup brush, removed the drip tray and it took eleven hours total before the fish was nice and firm but still plenty moist. It was worth the wait, I had family over the next day and a everyone was raving about how good it was. Now the hardest part is having enough control to not pig out on it too much and freeze some for later. Cheers

Hopefully it was just time related stress that blew the fuse. The other question could be what high current draw caused the fuse to blow? I'd suggest doing a real good clean up inside the back of the dryer and a good washing of the filter screen, specially if you use dryer sheets that leave an invisible film on the screen that blocks airflow and causes over heating.

First thing to check is the thermostat on the wall, see if you can hear it click when you turn the temp up.

The latest In-Fisherman has a good article on Last Chance Muskie. One section is on casting to structure to target spawning Cisco and Whitefish. The next section is on the Art of Trolling where again they mention lures that mimic Cisco, Whitefish and Suckers. Next section is on Jigging up Fall Monsters and the last section is on Dragging Meat where they slowly move along ith a bow mount with large 15-22" suckers using quick strike rigs under large foam floats that release on the hook set. As usual the have their recommendations for lures and rod/reel combos with all rods in the 9-10ft lengths.

A lot of your pics the critters are staring right at the camera, I figure they can hear the shutter.

Lucky kids. I made up two 1 gallon batches of brine last evening that spent the night in the fridge. 1 cup of coarse salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp #1 cure, black and red peppercorns, bay leaves and rosemary from my own plants, cumin, dried thyme, one garlic bulb and 3 tbs of pickling spice in each batch. Bring to boil and then cool overnight. Today I spent too long having to trim and cut up two large pork loins as I cursed the meat cutters who did them up. Couldn't turn them down though at $1.99lb. All loaded into 4 large ziplocks and in the fridge for4-5 days before rinsing and drying overnight and then into the Big Chief smoker till 130° or so, likely around 5 hours. I'll be set up with back bacon for the year I figure. Taking a break now and then I'll be into cutting up tomatoes and putting them through the hand crank press, it works real good, no skin or seeds in the sauce. Not sure if I posted a pic of it here before.

Yea I still have quite a few jars still left from a couple of years back. Had two different people tell me it was the best salsa they'd ever had. I told them it wasn't so much the recipe as it was the tomatoes. My own fresh garlic helps too.

Yea I'm still getting lot's of huge tomatoes this season but for some reason I'm getting some with black spots that definitely aren't blossom end rot, not sure why. The stem ends aren't as clean as normal either. I'm wondering if its because my watering schedule isn't as consistent as it should be or possibly an excess of nitrogen ferts from the chicken manure and alfalfa tea I was using. I thought I would have a water supply where I have them planted this year but that didn't work out due to plumbing issues in the farm house basement so I've been trucking water over to water 24 plants. Truck is down atm too with a blown power steering line so I'm using the car now. These ones are from my latest pick, the front 3 are over 2lbs and all the rest well over a pound. Time to start making tomato sauce.

It certainly pays to shop smart and pay attention to your receipts and the cash while they're scanning. I just came across this receipt from a couple weeks back while cleaning out my plastic grocery bags before putting them back in the car. I have bins full of them as I never used to throw them out. So this was from Freshco, I bought 18 items and every single one was on sale. Total sale was $63.69, total savings was $50.52 and I also earned $8.50 in points. Bottom line is that I saved just over 51% on the regular price of 114.21. I always stock up on items I regularly use when they go on sale.

You must be a Snoopy fan lol.