I bought a saw and mincer.

[Treeman]

I have given up trying to manage the Flicker account, everytime Cody uses PC he leaves it on his account and then when I work I save my stuff to his account. 
20230911_191619 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr
Look how this boy has grown, size 11 shoe now.

[Shotofrank]

 Nice to see the boy doing real value things. I am a firm believer in instilling old school life skills in our childrens day to day doings.

[Treeman]

We have now made our second batch of wors and its really nice - got the %ages correct this time, last batch was a bit out because we only used meat weight to measure spices. We should have used meat + fat + water weight.
The wors is a bit on the hard side, very firm, I am asking around to find the possible reasons. I am told that I should try add more water to mix and also to work the meat at lower temperatures.

I also made some meatballs, German style, like the size of oranges, using the same wors mix - verrrry nice, better than the wors actually.

[oafpatroll]

My mouth is watering like a fountain!

[Ds J]

The wors is a bit on the hard side, very firm, I am asking around to find the possible reasons. I am told that I should try add more water to mix and also to work the meat at lower temperatures.

I have had similar experiences: venison tends to be harder and dryer whereas beef tends to make softer and juicier wors.

Venison wors with more fat tends to be juicier. We usually mix in roughly 20% - 25% of fat; depending on the availability of fat. I am considering making a batch with 30% fat as an experiment.

Traditionally, the folks in the Kalahari mix one fat sheep with one kudu for wors.

Others mince the fat into bigger bits, and the meat into finer bits. Afterwards, they mix the batches together.

[oafpatroll]

Traditionally, the folks in the Kalahari mix one fat sheep with one kudu for wors.

This is exactly the rule of thumb I was taught when I worked on processing the meat shot by the brass at defense headquarters when I was in the mag. Our biggest batch of wors while I was there almost filled a 250L vessel. The more coarsely ground mutton/fat was also how we did it.

 

[Treeman]

This is really very rewarding and very addictive to do.
20231003_180124 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

I find myself out producing what we can eat.
20231003_180552 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

[Tripodmvr]

Hell, am I invited? Looking good and tasty.

[oafpatroll]

I can almost smell it and it's droolworthy in my imaginings.

[Treeman]

It amazing how sensitive the recipe can be 20 % fat was not very nice, 25 % was notably "more!". The first batch had Cody saying "not enough fat in two minutes"
The second batch had me saying its very fatty before even tasting, you could see it was fatty.
But !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The first batch of fat was high % yellow fat, the second was pure white fat, there is a lesson to be learnt in this.
White fat is is greasier than yellow fat and in my opinion more disgusting. White fat is so "euughhh "

  

[Kola]

Yes, big difference between white and yellow fat, and I always make small batches with small changes to test before I commit to a full batch.

[SouljaMan]

So yellow is the one to go with?
Is that a preference thing, or is it just better?

[Tripodmvr]

Biltong with yellow fat is THE tastiest.

[Treeman]

Yes, big difference between white and yellow fat, and I always make small batches with small changes to test before I commit to a full batch.

************************
I still gotta learn this small tester thing.

[Treeman]

So yellow is the one to go with?
Is that a preference thing, or is it just better?

*******************
Well on food levels its healthier, more other things than just fat. It is also a lot tastier as it's not just fat, its also where a lot of the animals characteristic taste is stored.
All said open to correction.