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Transcription: [00:08:42]
{SPEAKER name="Corrie Smith"}
Always use the hams and the shoulders, and then you bone them out and then you get 25 pounds and we put it in a, something like a bucket that we can measure it, and that way we don't have to take it to the scales,
[00:08:55]
and you get a pack of Leg's Seasoning, and you put that on there and you mix it up real good. You put your sage on there if you want them mild, and then you add the red pepper if you want them hot. And then you grind them, and after you grind them, you mix them up real good, and then you put them in the mill again and you stuff them in the hog lines.

[00:09:15]
[crosstalk]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Ok, so, you grind up, you put ham in everything? In the sausage?

{SPEAKER name="Corrie Smith"}
Ham and shoulder. And some fat.

{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Ham and shoulder and sometimes Boston butt in the sausage. You grind it up and you grind it twice? Just once?

[00:09:27]
{SPEAKER name="Corrie Smith"}
No, you grind it once, and then if you're going to stuff them, you run it back through again into the casings.

[00:09:34]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
I see, I see. Now where do you get your seasonings? The seasoning you use in your sausage.

[00:09:39]
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
The seasoning we get comes from Birmingham, Alabama, Legs Packing company. It is the best seasoning on the market! I'm not giving a plug, but it's the season I know how to use, it's well blended and then, to it, we add our sage, extra, and red pepper to give our own special blend to it.
[00:09:59]
And we make either hot or mild, whichever they prefer. We make some of both so we can, you know, give the public what they want. And by using 80% lean, when you smoke this sausage, it don't dry it up. You have a nice pretty sausage.
[00:10:19]
And, uh, a smoke in a sausage is real critical. The smokehouse we use is exactly like this one on the mall except we have the furnace on the outside for safety of fire, and also, I can control the heat on my sausage.
[00:10:36]
We first go in the smokehouse and hang our sausage fresh, and then we begin the fire, and we get the heat built up to at least 170 degrees. And I put a fan in that furnace so that I can control the heat because you've got to get them up to 170 degrees and hold that same temperature for no less than two hours.
[00:11:03]
If you let your heat drop even 10 degrees, those sausage will not--will not go. You have to throw them away, they will collapse. So that's--that's why it's so critical to hold your heat at that temperature or even a little higher. And that's why we have the furnace on the outside rather than have a fire inside. To get that much heat, you might would burn the whole works down, you see.
[00:11:31]
And so we can smoke a sausage in three and a half hours with this process, and you have a fully smoked, delicious tasting sausage. And then early the next morning, we get out and take those sausage out of the smokehouse, and we go back, put them in the store, and naturally, we sell them, and we put them back on refrigeration. You don't have to! There's no way that you can spoil this sausage although it has no additives whatsoever. It's pure, pure meat and pure seasoning.
[00:12:06]
[crosstalk]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
So if it's been smoked, there's no way that it will--that it will spoil. The smoke will--
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
That's right. It will mold after a certain length of time, but the mold does not hurt it. All you have to do is wash it off, and fry it, just keep right on. And that sausage will be good two years from now. You can eat that same sausage!
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Is that right? It'll last that long?
[00:12:24]
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
That's right! It'll change taste in about two weeks after you smoke it to another taste, which to me is real, you know, delicious.
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Ah, so you like it after it's been aged for about two weeks.
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
That's--that's right.
[00:12:38]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
What are some other things now that you will smoke in your smokehouse besides the sausage?
[00:12:43]
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
Well, down home, where we boil, you know, cook a lot of black eyed peas and beans and such as that, we smoke ham hocks. That is a good seasoning for any kind of vegetable, or dry beans, or peas. That's a good seasoning for anything, even rice.
[00:13:00]
And, uh, we smoke bacon, we smoke shoulders, hams, and pork chops. Now pork chops are real delicious fixed this way.
[00:13:12]
We can take a pork loin, and we can just lightly salt that whole pork loin and put it back in the walk-in cooler with about 35 to 40 degrees temperature on it. And in one week, we can smoke this pork loin.
[00:13:27]
And then we take it, and as the customer wants it, we slice off whatever they want, and you have the same flavor as your country ham, and the meat is real tender. And you just fry them, don't put anything on them! Just fry them! And they are delicious!