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Sausage Making

Neal J. Brown

By Neal J. Brown
in Cooking

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radtek

radtek

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It can affect the final product's texture perhaps. Curing before mixing makes the meat more tacky and it will knit together better. Or Just mix the crap out of it first then stuff. Lots of ways to do it technique-wise but the results aren't always the same.

 

If it is a breakfast style of chorizo then crumbly is better.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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While on the subject, I recently did these...

painsaus1_zps2vysbphk.jpg

We do an occasional spicy food challenge at work. Somebody makes something and brings it in for those brave (or dumb, depending on your viewpoint) enough to partake. The only rule is that it has to be an actual food item, not just a spoonful of super-hot sauce and a cracker or something like that. The super-hot sauces are fair game as an ingredient though.

The meat is 2 lbs. ground pork and 1/2 lb. ground bacon seasoned with smoked salt, brown sugar, paprika, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, msg, 3 tbsp. cayenne and 1 tbsp dried chile flakes. This was to be the spicy but flavorful base to work from. I fried up a taste-test piece... a nice sausage, reminiscent of a good hot link. Time to make it bite. So I mixed in 16 fresh habaneros (finely minced, seeds and all), 2 pulverized dried ghost peppers, 1 tbsp. Ass Blaster sauce (~50,000 scovilles), 1 tbsp. Ultra Death sauce (~800,000 scovilles) and 1 tsp. Flash Bang sauce (~5 million scovilles). The Ass Blaster has a nice heat combined with a nice flavor. The Ultra Death is pretty damn hot but also has a nice flavor. The Flashbang is just evil. It has a nice enough flavor but you don't get to enjoy it for long before it punches you in the face. I stuffed the sausage in hog casings and tossed them in the fridge.

They traveled to work the next day to be sampled. They were hot. They were even HOT. But they weren't as hot as I expected. I'd done a taste-test on the habaneros I bought and they weren't messing around, they were hot. I have noticed in the past that it can be kinda difficult to maintain the heat levels that go into something through the cooking process. I guess that was the case here. It's also possible that the ongoing challenges are dulling our sensitivity because the main 3 participants (myself and 2 others) that do these challenges on a semi-regular basis were much less miserable than the others. In the end, I was happy with the result. They were on the painful side of fun but still able to be eaten and enjoyed (by heat seekers) instead of being tasted and left on the plate because the heat was intolerable.



 

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Ran 3 lbs. of beef and 2 lbs. of pork through the grinder today. Mixed it with assorted seasonings, curing salt and a couple of those evil "ingredients they can't pronounce" that the commercials like to go on about (they do make for a nicer product but I think I use them mainly out of spite, the notion that food safety is directly associated with one's literacy level offends me), chilled it, emulsified it in the processor to a smooth paste and shot it into a large fibrous casing. It's in the fridge overnight letting everything get happy together. Tomorrow it'll go in the sous vide tank. If bologna comes out of the tank, I'll be back with pictures. I thought about smoking it but I already have ribs rubbed and waiting in the fridge to go in the smoker tomorrow.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Not a lot to see at this point, but as promised...

bologna1_zpsbxkp8fth.jpg

bologna2_zpsqej591av.jpg


5 lbs. of bologna. Took almost 5 hours to hit temp. Quick chilled it in ice water, dried it and tossed it in the fridge. I guess I'll find out tomorrow if it was worth the fair amount of work and large amount of cleanup involved.

 

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Last post on this one, the inside view...

bologna3_zpsgqvsdard.jpg


It was worth the effort. The flavor is really nice. The texture is slightly more dense than most of the commercial stuff I've had but it's nice. I'm not enough of a bologna fan to do this often but I can't say I won't do it again.
 

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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I have a question for the experts. I'm going to make a sausage using 4 parts ground bacon and 1 part ground lean pork. If I add prague #1 to the mixture to keep things safe for a slow temp-ramped smoke session, does the sodium nitrite already in the bacon effect the amount needed (or possibly eliminate the need for it)? I'm not actually sure I'm going to smoke them at this point, I'm going to do a taste test first and see if I think it's even needed, but I thought I'd ask just in case.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Okay, the above question has become temporarily unimportant. They're forecasting 80% chance of rain and thundershowers for tomorrow, the only day I would have sufficient free time to do a slow smoke on the sausages before I need them (I'm making them for Canada Day, which is July 1), so whatever smoke is present from the bacon will probably have to suffice. But I still wouldn't mind knowing the answer if anybody can be of help with it.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

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You can't safely count any residual nitrite in the bacon in terms of botulinum toxin control when smoking at low temperature because it's an unknown (and likely very low if recommended nitrite limits and a cure accelerators have been used) without laboratory analysis.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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You can't safely count any residual nitrite in the bacon in terms of botulinum toxin control when smoking at low temperature because it's an unknown (and likely very low if recommended nitrite limits and a cure accelerators have been used) without laboratory analysis.

Thanks! I was kinda hoping you would pop in and see this one when I posted it. So basically I should just treat it as a zero and go with the usual safe amounts, correct?

 

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

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Yes.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Nice work Tri2cook it looks great. Emulsified sausages are tricky and you pulled it off.

Thanks! It was my first shot at homemade bologna so I was pretty happy with the result.

 

Man that is inspirational!

 

You gotta do a short but heavy smoke pre-SV on the next one!

I plan to smoke it the next time I decide to do it. The temps weren't going to be compatible with the ribs already going in the smoker when I made this one so I had to go another route.

 

Yes.

Thanks again, I appreciate the help.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Bacon sausage it is...

grbacon1_zpsfbl1yl2a.jpg

2000 grams of bacon, ground twice through the ~5 mm plate.

grpork1_zpsgtgfm7jj.jpg

500 grams pork butt, ground once through the same plate.

sausmix1_zps3zmqkdku.jpg

The two combined, along with 15 grams of dark brown sugar and 8 grams of coarse ground black pepper.

frytest1_zpsb0tc18qv.jpg

Fry test to check flavor. It's good. Really good.

bacsaus1_zps2etmoiox.jpg

Stuffed into 32/35 hog casings and linked. I really wanted to smoke these, I think it would elevate them even further. But the weather isn't going to allow that today and I'll be at work tomorrow and Tuesday. I need these for Wednesday so the smoke's not going to happen. There is a nice smoke flavor from the bacon so it should be fine.

 

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Okanagancook

Okanagancook

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Today we made Italian Hot from Rutland's book and Andouille from Egullet...a combo of recommendations. 

30lbs of Italian took us most of the morning.  The Andouille will be smoked tomorrow.  We made the sausage with fellow sausage lovers who had to learn how to form the sausages out of the piston sausage stuffer seeing my DH has only one wing these days due to rotator cuff surgery.  He was on guidance mode and I was on clean up and organization.  The Italian really turned out great....I bought a high grade paprika which I think made a big difference to last year.  Last year we only made 15 lbs.

DSC01899.thumb.jpg.e7869e7a3e4065f3f34da7cc9bab0f88.jpgDSC01901.thumb.jpg.b7e7186283e7d3efffefe260e86475d9.jpgDSC01900.thumb.jpg.d523c454f6ab26e584c2daa1d4e88d5f.jpg

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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A little sausage making this weekend. The first picture is 10 lbs of Pennsylvania Dutch style Lebanon bologna. it came out of the smoker just over 18 heavily smoked hours later. I'll get some more pictures when I slice it after it spends a couple days in the fridge. The other is 5 lbs. of pork hot links that are relaxing in the smoker right now.

lebanon.jpg

hot-pork.jpg

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Chorizo time, Mexican style. The seasoning paste: ancho, guajillo and de arbol chiles, garlic, vinegar, spices and salt...

paste1.jpg

and the sausage. Beef on the left, pork on the right.

chorizo2.jpg

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

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On 8/3/2020 at 8:05 PM, Tri2Cook said:

A little sausage making this weekend. The first picture is 10 lbs of Pennsylvania Dutch style Lebanon bologna. it came out of the smoker just over 18 heavily smoked hours later. I'll get some more pictures when I slice it after it spends a couple days in the fridge. The other is 5 lbs. of pork hot links that are relaxing in the smoker right now.

lebanon.jpg

hot-pork.jpg

 

Nice work! :smile:

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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