My first real job in high school was at a grocery store. I bagged groceries, stocked shelves, and made my way to the meat department as the cleanup boy. Not long in, I began to learn how to grind meat, use the tenderizer, and distinguish between cuts.
After a year or so working part time, I was hired full time and became more and more skilled. I began butchering deer with a friend at night, worked at a local slaughter house on my day off, and my friend, Steve and I began buying a few pieces of equipment to process at home.
Fast forward to today. I have two meat grinders (a .5hp Cabelas with a #8 head and a 1.5hp MEAT #32 head grinder). One 50lb tilt mixer that attaches to the 1.5hp MEAT grinder. Cabelas manual tenderizer. A MEAT jerky gun. A Hakka vertical 15lb sausage stuffer. For my birthday this year I bought a tri-hone knife sharpener that no normal man should own. It’s a commercial grade one that professional meat shops use. My wife teases me unmercifully about these items and the totes of accessories. I think I’m about one very large donor away from opening “Simply Sausage OKC.” A VERY large one.
Below are a few examples of this hobby. Deer bacon, brats pre-linked, breakfast sausage links, deer snack sticks, 1lb packages of ground deer/beef, summer sausage tubes, and flat deer jerky.
Toby DeHay 