A Smokin' Future: Uncle Jim's Smokehouse

Jim Smith's obsession with sausages started innocently enough.

As a hunter, he said he was always bothered that most custom meat companies mix the meats from multiple customers together into a large batch for easier processing.

He didn't want easier. He wanted products made from the meat he brought in.

So he started making his own. With some second-hand equipment and handy tips from a friend, he began turning his hunting season harvests into pepperoni and sausages in about 2004. Friends and family liked his spice mixes so much they began asking him to process their meats. In 2006, he was doing so many custom meat orders, he decided it was time to get officially licensed as Uncle Jim's Smokehouse.

Nearly 10 years later Smith says the hallmark of his custom meat service is still mixing the products in small batches so that they're only processing a single hunter's order at one time.

“It's one thing I know out customers like that they're getting their own meat back,” Jim said.

Jim worked for the Lewis County road department for 33 years and said this is the type of thing he dreamed about doing in his retirement. His wife of 13 years, Cindy, said she never pictured this future together but enjoys working side by side with her husband now that she is retired from the mortgage industry.

“We just have a good time together,” she said.

“I don't get yelled at in here,” Jim added with a smile.

The Smiths process an estimated 8,000-10,000 pounds of custom meat orders each hunting season. Besides deer and bear meat Jim said they've gotten some more unusual meats such as emu, cougar, duck and goose. Creating each bath individually is a bit more time consuming for sure. For instance, they recently ground 500 pounds of meat and it took about an hour and a half to complete just that step. And seasonings must be measured just right to get a consistent product every time, with each batch taking about 20 minutes to mix. Getting the seasoning just right was one of the biggest learning curves about the business, Jim said.

“It's a lot of trial and error,” Jim said. “A lot of throwing a lot of meat away until you get it right.”

The Smiths converted their Adna home's garage into the smokehouse, plus a storefront where the public can walk in and purchase their ready-made products from their freezers. Uncle Jim's Smokehouse offers a signature line of products, including: sausages; pepperoni; ham; bacon; breakfast sausage; hamburger; barbecue pork; smoked turkey; and lunch meat that comes in 12-pound logs you can slice yourself. Both custom and signature products are smoked with alder chips and provide a night and day difference from what you can get at the grocery store, Cindy said. She explained that most commercial sausage and pepperoni uses a lot of fillers and fats.

“When we make our sausages we use really lean meat so you don't get that really greasy feel to it,” Cindy said.

Besides their home storefront, the Smiths also take their creations on the road each summer (when custom orders are at a minimum), traveling to about a dozen local events with their food truck.

The most fun they had this summer was at Garlic Fest, where the organizers said they could join but only if they created a garlic sausage they approved of.

“That was a lot of meat thrown away on that one,” Jim said. “But when I finally got it right it was amazing.”

Festivals are a fun challenge, the couple said, and they often make custom creations to go with the theme of the day. For instance, they make a seafood sausage for Shimpfest in Brinnon every year. But what they said they really love about taking their food truck out is meeting the people.

“We'll have old people from, like, Germany come up and tell us, 'That's the best sausage I've ever had,'” Jim said. “That's an awesome feeling.”

Out of their food truck, the Smiths have also made the decision to begin catering events. Cindy and her mother used to own a catering company more than 20 years ago and she said cooking is something she really enjoys doing. She brought her daughter and daughter-in law in to work with her on it. Her daughter in-law makes cakes, so they can offer a full range of options.

“I'd love to get it started and really get it going for them and then they can run with it,” Cindy said.

Uncle Jim's Smokehouse's next project will be adding dried salame to the menu. The Smiths are hoping in early 2016 to add the facilities so they can attempting to revive an old family recipe from Cindy's family she fondly recalls making with her father when she was growing up.

“But we have to build a temperature and humidity controlled room for that,” Jim explained.