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Transcription: [00:22:24]
{SPEAKER name="Corrie Smith"}
Get them too tight and they'll burst and if you get them too loose they'll just be too loose.
[00:22:28]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Are the hog casings all the same? They're really the hog intestines that you're using right? And they're all clean, you're using the casings for your sausage?
[00:22:36]
Uh, are they all the same size? Is it,I mean it seems then it will be pretty easy to stuff the same amount of meat into the casing.
[00:22:46]
{SPEAKER name="Corrie Smith"}
No ma'am, they're not the same size. Some of them are real small and some of them are real big and some are real long and some are real short.
[00:22:53]
{SPEAKER name="Mrs. Bentley"}
It's not easy because I can't do it like they can.
{SPEAKER name="J.L. Harris"}
[[laughter]] Testimony there.
[00:23:00]
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
There's a skill to stuffing sausage because on a fast piece of machinery like we use that we use the regular sausage meal, and it will go through there so fast, until you got to be on the job catching it as it comes out.
[00:23:14]
And you just hold that casing up to it to completely fill the casing and not overfill it you know, and it naturally it will bust.
[00:23:24]
But you want a nice uniform sausage, you can feel with it coming through your hand just what you're doing to that sausage and then when you get it stuffed all the way out, some of the casings that we have will hold 12 or 15 pounds of pure meat
[00:23:39]
and then you just lay that link down, that whole link, you just let it run out, and then you can take your fingers and squeeze it together and flip it 2 or 3 times then you are linking it and you can make long links or short links however you want, and uh then you got it ready to sell or put in the smokehouse.
[00:23:59]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Right and that's what you were doing as I recall
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
[[overlapping]] That's right. That's my job is linking the sausage.
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
[[overlapping]] That's your job I see
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
And the first is hers, she bust them.
{SPEAKER name="J.L. Harris"}
I see.
[00:24:07]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
We invite those of you who are sitting out there to participate in our narrative event if you have any questions you would like to ask the Bentleys about meat processing
[00:24:16]
we'll be happy to give them the chance to respond. Do you have any questions at all? No?
[00:24:22]
{SPEAKER name="Mrs. Bentley"}
There's one question I'd like to ask Fred while we're together that people's asked me at the smokehouse and I didn't know what to tell them and that is how much weight did your bacon or hams lose from the time you sawed them to when you cured them.
[00:24:38]
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
On a 12 pound ham you will lose at least 2 pounds in weight and that loss is from the moisture being drawn out and it's drying out
[00:24:48]
and uh, this is what they call a dry curing process. Your meat, you can eat it right out of the smokehouse but the best way is to put it in grease and fry it that way you're putting moisture back in your meat for it will be tender.

Transcription Notes:
Not sure which is Corrie Smith or Gerri Johnson. There are also other voices not accounted for, like the woman asking questions.