Tag: make

Homemade Deli Meat — With and Without Ham Maker

writ­ten 4/15/2024, updat­ed 7/21/2025

The juices that came out of this… YUM

What

Mak­ing deli meat at home by com­bin­ing dif­fer­ent cuts of meat (can be same kind of meat or a mix­ture) with and with­out a Ham Mak­er

Why

Abil­i­ty to con­trol what’s put inside your own cold cuts, and can be cheap­er

Time and Effort

Time: A few hours

Effort: Easy

Ingre­di­ents

Meat

Sea­son­ings

Sup­plies

Mix­ing Bowls

Cut­ting Board

Knives/Meat Grinder/Processor

Ham Mak­er

Plas­tic Wrap/Sausage Wrap­ping

Foil

Pot/Rice Cooker/Oven

Ham Maker Method

Using a Ham Mak­er is real­ly the eas­i­est way to make a formed meat, espe­cial­ly if you want to mix sev­er­al cuts or meats togeth­er. It can also be used with­out mix­ing meats or grind­ing them. Ham Mak­ers make the wrap­ping step a cinch.

Ham Mak­er

Ingredients and Supplies

Meat, Sea­son­ings, Water, Ham Mak­er, Cook­ing Bag, Tall Pot, Pot Ther­mome­ter, Stove, Refrig­er­a­tor

Time

30 min­utes Prep + 2 hours Cook + overnight Chill

Process

  • Wash your Ham Mak­er if you haven’t
  • Fill a tall pot with Water, and heat it up on the stove (Tar­get: 182–195F)
  • Choose your meat:

Whole Meat — an entire piece of meat, uncut (e.g. pork loin, pork shoul­der, whole breast)

Mixed Meat — a formed mash of dif­fer­ent cuts or com­bi­na­tions of meat types

  • Pre­pare your selec­tion by remov­ing veins, bones, and sinews. Decide if you want to keep, and how much, any fat
  • If using a meat mix­ture, chop, mince, grind, process, or any com­bi­na­tion as desired
  • Sea­son your choice of meat, to taste
  • Allow to set for a few min­utes
  • In the mean­time, line the Ham Mak­er with a Cook­ing Bag
  • When ready, place meat into the can­is­ter
  • Twist the top of the bag closed
  • Close the Ham Mak­er with the press and lid, then insert the ther­mome­ter
  • When water in the pot reach­es between 180 — 195F, place the full Ham Mak­er in the water, mak­ing sure the water lev­el sits above the fill line of the meat inside
  • Keep the tem­per­a­ture steady (I set my gas stove low-medi­um)
  • Cook until inter­nal tem­per­a­ture reach­es the safe cook­ing tem­per­a­ture for your meat choice, about 2 hours
  • Place the hot Ham Mak­er on a hot pad in the refrig­er­a­tor and cool overnight
  • When ful­ly cooled, run can­is­ter under warm water to release the meat

Slice and Enjoy!

Pictures!!

Chopped, Minced, and Processed
Remov­ing Air Bub­bles
Squish
It’s Hot!
Chill­ing
Open­ing
Pour out the juice
Release
Still in Bag
There it is!

Ta-DAAA!! The hole is where both the twist top of the plas­tic and the ther­mome­ter when in. You can see the tex­ture dif­fer­ences from the dif­fer­ent cuts/processing of the meat. Deli­cious!

No Ham Maker Methods

Sous Vide and Smoked are two meth­ods of mak­ing this. If you don’t have a sous vide device, there are alter­na­tives

Sous Vide Method

There are dif­fer­ent ways to sous vide with­out actu­al­ly using a sous vide device. You can use an oven, a Dutch oven or a pot, and even a rice cook­er.

Ingredients and Supplies

Meat, Sea­son­ings, Mix­ing Bowls, Water, Pot/Oven/Rice Cook­er, Ther­mome­ter, Refrig­er­a­tor

Time

35 min­utes Prep + 2 hours Cook + Chill

Prepare Meat

*Pic­tures below

  • Remove any veins, sinews, and bones. Remove or use fat as desired
  • Choose your meat:

Whole Meat — an entire piece of meat, uncut (e.g. pork loin, pork shoul­der, whole breast)

Mixed Meat — a formed mash of dif­fer­ent cuts or com­bi­na­tions of meat types

  • If using Mixed Meat, pre­pare a [diced: minced: ground] meat ratio of [¾ : ½ : ⅓ lb] or [350 : 250 : 150 g]
  • Sea­son the meat, to taste (If desired, sea­son each tex­ture a bit dif­fer­ent­ly for a com­bined com­plex fla­vor)

Wrap

  • Set out a dou­ble lay­er of plas­tic wrap and sprin­kle half with smoked papri­ka and what­ev­er else you’d like
  • Turn out meat mix­ture
  • Tight­ly roll into desired shape and size

NOTE: Make sure wrapped meat log(s) will fit into your cook­ing imple­ment so it can be cov­ered in water!

  • Secure the ends

Cooking

Here are 3 meth­ods of cook­ing the meat ham with­out ded­i­cat­ed Sous Vide equip­ment

Pot Method

  • Fill with water
  • Bring water to a boil
  • Place meat log into the water (make sure meat is and will be ful­ly sub­merged the whole time)
  • Bring to a boil again
  • Turn off heat and place lid tight­ly on top
  • Leave for 45 min­utes to 1 hour
  • Check for done­ness with ther­mome­ter
  • Repeat if nec­es­sary
  • When done, let cool and enjoy, or chill in refrig­er­a­tor

Oven Method

  • Pre­heat oven to 215 — 220F (100C)
  • Select a deep dish or oven safe pot
  • Boil enough water to fill
  • Pour in boil­ing water
  • Place meat log
  • Cov­er with parch­ment paper
  • Cov­er that in foil and/or a tight lid
  • Cook for 1–3 hours until 160F (75C)
  • Remove from oven
  • Place in an ice bath and/or refrig­er­a­tor until inter­nal tem­per­a­ture is 50F (10C)

Rice Cook­er Method

  • Boil water
  • Pour boiled water into rice cook­er
  • Using a ther­mome­ter, mix in cold water until water tem­per­a­ture is some­where between 175–195F
  • Place meat log into water
  • Close
  • Set rice cook­er to Keep Warm
  • Cook for about 2 hours
  • Be sure tem­per­a­ture is safe for choice of meat
  • Let cool then enjoy or chill in refrig­er­a­tor

Pictures (Oven Method)

Ground
Cubed
Diced
Fla­vor­ing
sea­son­ing
Com­bine
Let sit
Rolling
…Yeah it does­n’t fit well. Pour­ing in the boil­ing water
Wax paper
Foil and in the oven
Ice bath
Ta Da!! Taste was ON POINT

Smoker Method

This method uses a meat grinder then a meat smok­er. You can use a ded­i­cat­ed meat grinder, a meat grind­ing attach­ment for a stand mix­er, or even just a food proces­sor

Prepare Meat

  • Decide on ratio of meat cuts (e.g. [½ : ½] ratio of [skinned chick­en thigh : skin­less chick­en breast])
  • Cut into small pieces

Grind/Process

  • Grind/Process 1st time
  • Grind/Process 2nd time
  • Add any desired sea­son­ings and half of total water

NOTE: For 1lb of meat, add 20ml (⅔ oz. or 1⅓ Tbsp) of water

Total ratio is 40mL water per 1lb (40mL = 1⅓ oz = 2¾ Tbsp)

  • Grind/Process 3rd time

Wrap

  • Place ground meat in a mix­ing bowl
  • Add the rest of the water, and then mix togeth­er real­ly well (should be very sticky)
  • Pump or stuff into an edi­ble or ined­i­ble cas­ing (100mm is the largest size I could find on Ama­zon)
  • Secure the end

Cooking

Overview: 1 hour Dry + 1 hour @ 130F + 1 hour @ 145F + 1 hour @ 160F + more @ 175F

Total: ~5 hours

  • Set smok­er to 120F (50C), NO smoke, NO humid­i­ty, OPEN dampers to dry the cas­ing for 1 hour
  • Set to 130F (55C), ADD smoke, ADD humid­i­ty (water pan), ¾ damper for 1 hour
  • 145F (65C) for 1 hour
  • 160F (72F) for 1 hour
  • 175F (75C) until inter­nal tem­per­a­ture reach­es 160F (72C)
  • Place in an ice bath to sep­a­rate the cas­ing and the meat

Slice and enjoy!

Notes

Attempt 4/14/24: Used Oven Sous Vide Method. Should have added some­thing like corn­starch in the meat mix­ture to give it some adher­ence. That and/or chang­ing the ratio to add more ground/pureed meat to fill in the gaps in the meat, while tak­ing away from the orig­i­nal cubed meat. Even if cub­ing (altered the recipe direc­tions to use small­er pieces), then should process a lit­tle. 3 degrees of food proces­sor chop­ping to make the final prod­uct smoother would be more ide­al. The way this end­ed up was more of a head­cheese. There IS an obvi­ous com­plex tex­ture, but it all fell apart eas­i­ly. The 3 dif­fer­ent fla­vor pro­files gave it GREAT taste. Made the mis­take of not think­ing about the cook­ing ves­sel until after rolling the meat. Should have cut it in half and then would have been able to have 2 small­er hams and able to cook it inside of the Dutch oven with the water filled to the top. The way I had it, the water did­n’t even cov­er the whole meat log, so cook­ing was very uneven. Unsure of how to test inter­nal tem­per­a­ture of meat log with­out mak­ing a mess. Cook­ing @ 215F took about 2.5 to 3 hours total. Used way too much plas­tic wrap and was­n’t able to use a lid­ded dish, just 2 lay­ers of foil. Meat used: Chick­en. 3 thighs, 1.5 breast, ¼lb ground chick­en (hand squeezed to pul­ver­ize). NEXT TIME: more ground chick­en, less cubed breast. Add corn­starch for smooth­ness and adher­ence. Small­er logs for more even cook­ing. More food pro­cess­ing. Maybe try using meat cas­ing.

7/21/2025: Used Ham Mak­er

  • Sous Vide cook­ing charts rec­om­mend cook­ing chick­en at 150F for 1–3 hours.
  • A Ham Mak­er is a MUCH eas­i­er method of doing this. It’s a met­al con­trap­tion with a spring in it that fits right into a stock pot on the stove and does the same thing neat­ly. How­ev­er, if you don’t have one and don’t want one, this is fine, too.
  • There’s always the option of bak­ing or broil­ing it after the fact for a pos­si­ble crust or rind? Haven’t attempt­ed that yet

DIY: Bed Canopy Frame with PVC

writ­ten 6/17/24, updat­ed 7/28/24

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Overview

What

Mak­ing a DIY canopy frame over a bed with PVC

Why

Cool­ing. To trap A/C from floor reg­is­ter under­neath a canopy dur­ing sum­mer. Room is top floor of a 3‑story town­house. Can be use­ful for trap­ping heat in the win­ter, too.

Time and Effort

1 per­son project, 2 would be help­ful

Time: 1 hour

Effort: Easy

Materials and Cost

4ft 1″ PVC Pipe (your choice of PVC size and height)

PVC Fit­tings (depends on how many con­nec­tions you want)

Canopy Mate­r­i­al

Fab­ric Fas­ten­ers (ties/clips/hooks/attachments)

Tem­po­rary Secure­ments (option­al, but rec­om­mend­ed)

$93.99 (20 piece)

$24.86 (14 total)

$39.99

$14.99 (25/pack)

$15.98 (Qty: 4)

Oth­er Sup­plies: Ratch­et­ing PVC Cut­ter ($14), Dri­ver, Drill Bits

Total Cost: $189.81

PVC Fittings

For this 6′ x 4′ x 6′ canopy, I bought 4′ long PVC at 1″ width (you can choose oth­er sizes and lengths) and used the ratch­et­ing PVC cut­ter to cut the pieces to 2′ to cre­ate 6′ lengths. T

Fit­tings need­ed for the 1″ PVC

FORMUFIT, a com­pa­ny that spe­cial­izes in fur­ni­ture-grade PVC sells all of these plus more options in many col­ors. 100% USA made. I bought every­thing but the 3‑way elbows at a local big box store in the PVC aisle because FOR­MU­FIT’s prod­ucts come in packs of 10.

  • 3‑Way Elbow (4 qty)
  • 90-Degree Elbow (4 qty)
  • Exter­nal Cou­pling (4 qty)
  • Stan­dard Tee (4 qty)

Option­al Foot­ers

I did­n’t do this, opt­ing for cross­bars favor­ing sta­bil­i­ty, but using a Reduc­er Cou­pling can work as pipe feet

Schematics

Here’s a hand-drawn dia­gram show­ing dimen­sions. This is 6′ x 4′ x 6′ (L x W x H) or 72″ x 48″ x 72″.

For ref­er­ence:

Bed Size (USA)Dimen­sions (L x W)
Twin75 in x 38 in (6¼ ft x 3⅙ ft)
Twin XL80 in x 38 in (6⅔ ft x 3⅙ ft)
Full75 in x 54 in (6¼ ft x 4½ ft)
Queen80 in x 60 in (6⅔ ft x 5 ft)
King80 in x 76 in (6⅔ ft x 6⅓ ft)
Cal­i­for­nia King84 in x 72 in (7 ft x 6 ft)

Why 4′ width when a twin bed is only 3⅙’ wide?

In this instance it’s to try and cap­ture the cool air blow­ing from the floor duct reg­is­ter, under the over­hang­ing side

This is a Reg­is­ter Boost­er Fan

Cutting the PVC

There are many options! And they most­ly depend on what’s avail­able in your house, how much you want to spend, how much time you mind spend­ing, what mess you want to make/clean up, and future use­ful­ness of any new­ly bought tools (or will it just sit in a box some­where for the rest of your life). Options include any­thing that cuts from man­u­al saws to pow­ered saws to ded­i­cat­ed PVC cut­ters.

Method 1

My first go-to was the Cord­less Mul­ti-tool I’d bought but had yet to use.

Clamped and ele­vat­ed
Cut­ting!
Whoops. Cut line and drawn line are not match­ing!
Messy and very rough edges

VERDICT: It will CUT. But it will also make a mess, cre­ate rough edges, time con­sum­ing, and requires clamps, and it took me a while to fig­ure out if there’s a best blade to use for PVC.

Method 2

I decid­ed to buy a Ratch­et­ing PVC Cut­ter for $14

Mea­sur­ing!
Line ‘er up!
Watch the ratch­et­ing mech­a­nism work
Super smooth edge and NO mess!

VERDICT: It will KEAL and lac­er­ate the PVC. This method is supe­ri­or. No set­ting up, no mess at all, smooth edges, and super-fast. No pow­er source

Assembly

Well. There’s not much to say here. You push the pipes into the fit­tings and form them into what­ev­er shape you want. The hard­est part is hold­ing them in place while you fit more. This is why a 2nd per­son could be use­ful. I did it by myself.

Fastening

Now, this is option­al, espe­cial­ly if your struc­ture will be a tem­po­rary one. Before putting them togeth­er, I mulled over this a lot. If the shape you formed is sol­id, you like­ly don’t need to secure the parts as they’re pret­ty tight just dry-fit­ted. How­ev­er, you have the option of cre­at­ing per­ma­nent or secure-yet-tem­po­rary bonds.

Permanent

Many choic­es out there, but THIS is your tra­di­tion­al plumb­ing primer and cement. Sim­ply fol­low the direc­tions and prime then cement.

Make sure to use in a well-ven­ti­lat­ed area and beware the pur­ple stain­ing of objects and flesh

Secure-Yet-Removable

There are dif­fer­ent meth­ods of doing this: You can use a screw, you can use wood dow­els, I read some­thing about using rub­ber hos­ing, heck you can use tape if you want to. I test­ed out a method that’s sim­i­lar to the oth­ers, just a lit­tle fanci­er.

I opt­ed to try Quick Release Pins. They’re a bit pricey for a project like this that would need many to ful­ly secure, and it was dif­fi­cult to find a size that would not be too long. In the end I only installed the 2 that I bought.

You also need a drill, drill bit, a stool, and a vac­u­um because it will make a mess.

Seems to fit!
Chose the drill bit
Drilling and mak­ing a mess
Hole through and through (drilled from both sides)
Insert­ing!
Aaaand it does­n’t actu­al­ly fit through it.

While the first pin could not ful­ly engage the hole (per­haps I drilled it at an angle instead of straight through), the sec­ond one did. Advice: err on the larg­er side when choos­ing a drill bit. I had to use the bit to ream out the open­ing from many angles just to get the pin to fit

Suc­cess!

The pin secures the pipe to the fit­ting, ensur­ing that it will not come apart. The only flaw in this is that if you use many fit­tings, that’s a lot of secure­ments! I chose the top cor­ners of the frame as it would pre­vent the ends from bow­ing out if the canopy mate­r­i­al end­ed up being too heavy for the frame.

Canopy

This part, I’m still not super hap­py about. It was hard to find any canopy curtain/top/fabric at all, let alone one that appealed to me. Aside from sewing one myself from a cho­sen, ide­al fab­ric (which I may end up doing in the future), I end­ed up choos­ing a can­vas tarp. My orig­i­nal idea was to use an old fit­ted sheet. I did­n’t con­sid­er how slip­pery the PVC is and after about 15 min­utes of wran­gling, I gave up. Plus, how would I secure the fit­ted sheet? The can­vas tarp was not only as thick as I want­ed it to be, but it came in a white col­or. If I want to trap cool air, I don’t want it to absorb heat as a dark­er col­or.

White 8′ x10’ Can­vas Tarp

6″ Bungee Ball Cords

Assem­bly

8′ x 10′ seems large, does­n’t it? It kind of is… I thought that hav­ing the extra length would make it eas­i­er to drape and less like­ly to slip off. Also, that way, I can let the sides down as I please. Lat­er, I thought about spi­ders mak­ing webs in the folds…

Then a new prob­lem arose:

THE CORNERS

What to do? How to fas­ten? To this day, I don’t real­ly know the best option apart from cut­ting it and sewing it togeth­er (which would bring me back to square one with the canopy). I just kind of did some­thing.

Does it Work?

After all of that, does the canopy work? Does it trap cool air? I have to be hon­est, I’m not ful­ly sure! I think there is an improve­ment, yes, but it’s still not an end-all solu­tion. On the very hot days, I was hot and stuffy and found it hard to sleep. Low­er­ing the sides did make a dif­fer­ence, and I also end­ed up buy­ing an Air­tight Rip­stop Nylon Fab­ric think­ing that per­haps the tarp, which was made to be breath­able, was TOO breath­able.

HOWEVER. I do have a FLIR cam­era, so here are two inter­est­ing FLIR images (note: these images were tak­en before the addi­tion of the air­tight fab­ric on top):

A/C reg­is­ter behind the bed in the image (where the blue is)
A/C reg­is­ter to the RIGHT of the image

Blue is cool and yel­low is hot. The A/C reg­is­ter is on the right side of the right­most image. There IS a cool­ness to the canopy com­pared to the area out­side of the canopy. So, yes, in a word, yes, I think it does work.

VERDICT: Yes. It does trap cool air and main­tains cool­er tem­per­a­tures than the sur­round­ing air. Hav­ing a fan to fur­ther direct the air com­ing from the reg­is­ter might make it more effec­tive at cool­ing.

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