Fatty Piston - BBQ "Tool"

The "Fatty" or Bacon Explosion is now a common term known in the BBQ world and beyond. This "tool" should make it easier for you to successfully make a fatty.

I found this tool on another blog here but there were no specific instructions or bill of materials on how to build it. I'm making it easier.....

Why else would someone make this tool? Well.... I have issues - whenever I make a burrito / taco I seem to add about twice as much as the tortilla will hold - now what do I do? How am I supposed to eat this monster? Well, I have the same problem when I make a fatty. I know how much stuff I want on the inside. It just seems to be a little overstuffed making the fatty hard to roll up and maintain the integrity of bacon weave. When I saw the fatty piston on the other site a light bulb went on. I can compact the stuffing, getting the required amount of product in the middle!

All of the items were purchased at Lowe's but should be available at any home improvement store.



2" Schedule 40 PVC Pipe - the Cylinder
3/4" Schedule 40 PVC Pipe - the Piston Drive Shaft
1" Slip Fit Cap - the Piston Head
1" Slip Fit x 3/4" Slip Fit Adapter - connects the drive shaft with the piston head
1 1/2" Slip Fit Cap - the handle
1 1/2" Slip Fit x 3/4" Slip Fit Adapter - connects the drive shaft with handle.

I made the handle a bit larger than the piston head so you can tell which side is the piston and the larger surface just felt better in my hand.



You can see that the 1" Cap barely fits inside the 2" pipe. It's not a super tight tolerance with about 1/16" clearance on each side. I was worried at first that this gap would allow product to get around the side and cause problems but it worked great!




Here are the parts laid out so you can visualize how they go together.




I used some goo gone to get rid of the bar code sticker and price tag.




Here is the piston assembled. I glued the handle and slip fit adapter with PVC cement. I did not glue the piston head and adapter because PVC Glue is probably not food grade and I didn't feel like testing the theory even though it probably wouldn't come in contact - since the piston stayed together when I used it - I guess it didn't need to be cemented anyway. I may have to glue it after a few hundred uses but until I need to.....

I cut the 2" Pipe / product cylinder about 12" long. Most of the fatties I make seem to come out about 8 - 9" wide so this left a little room just in case but wasn't so long it became difficult to use / clean / store. I cut the 3/4" pipe 15" Long. Combined with the piston head and handle, it was long enough but still not too long.




I jammed almost 2 1/2 cups of stuffing into the piston for the appropriate length of my fatty. This stuffing was diced baked potatoes, cheese, breakfast sausage and some mango salsa. I wouldn't recommend adding any liquids in the future. It made the log kind of loose and would hold together better without it.





The log fit just right into the fatty. It was compacted so much that if I needed to I probably could have trimmed some off the end without messing up the log.

Add some sauce on the sausage layer....

Roll your fatty up - remember - roll up the sausage layer first and THEN roll up the bacon weave around the sausage roll.