Homemade Sausage Making

Mr Duck wrote:

1---smoke with the door open?
2---smaller burner?
3---some sort of baffle arrangement?
4---saw a hole in it and feed more air?
5---forget about propane. Stick a hot plate inside to get the wood chips smoldering?
6---spend another fifty bucks for that "Amazin" gadget?
7---separate the smoke generator from the smoker cabinet with a long length of stove pipe or downspout pipe? (Build some sort of smoke generator to hook to it)

1 - To dump heat and humidity.
2 - It's still gas
3 - See #2
4 - See #2
5 - Now we're gettin' closer.
6 - Ding, Ding, Ding. We have a winner. (On sale now)
7 - Too much work and interrupt my beer drinkin'.

BTW, when propane burns it PRODUCES moisture. Not something you want to do. Think DRY heat.

When wood burns it produces moisture because when hydrogen burns you get water. Wood is cellulose and cellulose is a carbohydrate.

Sometimes even small things can make a big different. In MR. el Ducko's case, adding a piece of pipe to the went in vertical position can be some help.
Chimneys are built strait up, because the air flow is the least restricted. Because his damper is in the back, the air flow is less, then it could be. Even the wind does carry the heat/smoke away better from a vertical pipe, because it isn't restricted by a side wall.

Suction plays a role too.

Hi boys & girls... I'm baaaaaccckkk! Moved a mile down the mountain and filled more cardboard boxes full of crap... stuff that I didn't even know I had. Been gone 5 days but it seems like a month. I'll be a couple of day catchin' up. Thanks Ross for watchin' over the flock while I was away. Thanks to everyone for being patient with Project B (delayed 5 days). This ol' divorce business is nasty business. Not for an old goat like me!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

el Ducko wrote: that "Amazin" gadget?

That's the go el Docko. If the ambient temperature is above 25 C, a block of ice in a tray inside the smoker works - only drawback is you have to keep the ice up to it.Tried hot plate, introduces too much heat.
Happy smokin' !

Mike Royko wrote in the Chicago paper that sometimes you have to give divorce time to work. Seems there was a wife beater and she kept going back.

Welcome back Mr. Chuckwagon.

I cannot decide if I'm a rat pack, or a pack rat, but I collect everything too, for 40 years, and than I trow it away. 2 weeks later I need what I just thrown away. Sometime you just can't win.....

Thanks guys. Say, who's been ridin' night herd? Any of you waddies been singin' to the doggies? I been atwixt and atween a rock and a hard spot up the spout havin' been invited to absquantulate and vamoose in record time. Big Sugar was set in an all-fired shindy and I recon I`ve sidled and skedaddled down the hill the last time, but bime by this biscuit roller will shine again directly.
Now, where were we? Oh yes... time to report on the Csabaii. Photos anyone?

Best Wishes,
RockChuck Smokin'WagonTrack

Chuckwagon, what language are you speaking? I didn;t get any of it?
Ursula

Welcome back Chuckwagon, hope you kept your main gear in your bed roll. Last time I moved (30 years ago) it took months to find all of my "important" gear.

I'll start with some pics and such on the Csabai project:

I started out a bit under 1000 g combined lean/fat-880 g to be exact. I pulled a 1Kg package of butt out of the freezer and after separating the fat I didn't care for the fat on this piece so I dumped it and went with fatback. The lean weighed in at 700g so I put added 180g of fat. I diced and seasoned the lean meat 9/25 and rested overnight. I held the fat in the freezer as Snagman suggested, I ground (3/8" plate) and mixed the lean and fat on 9/26, stuffed (32/35mm Hog Casings) and hung in the fridge at 38°F. I will start 1st stage cold smoke tomorrow (9/29) and finish Sunday.

My green weight was 878g stuffed weight (after a test piece was fried-very nice flavor), I checked the weight this morning and weight is down to 756g so I have about a 14% loss so far.

Pics:
Seasonings ready-


Seasoned and ready to mix-


Seasoned /ground lean and ground/frozen fat-


Mixed and ready to stuff-


Stuffed and linked (should have measured the links!)-


Links after 40 hrs refrigeration-


I'm looking forward to trying this with a cold one and a nice slice of "Cougar Gold" cheddar in a couple of weeks.

Pat

Hi Pat.

It looks good, to me it seems like a little too red. But it will change some at smoking.
When I make mine, I'll try to make it look like this.

http://www.toprecepty.cz/recept/15889-c ... i-kolbasz/

Gulyàs,

Thank you, I thought the color was a bit darker than I had seen in pics also. I used the ratio of paprika called for in the recipe and it was Hungarian Paprika, we'll see how it changes with smoking and additional curing. My guess is it will darken but I'm new to this so when I say "guessing" I mean it!

Pat

Hey Pat, it looks fine. When you smoke, and dry it, you put in as much paprika as you like.
You have to be careful if you make the fresh one, because we like to over bake/fry it, and than if you burn the paprika, it gets bitter.
What most people call the "original", has 25 gr. paprika per kg. meat.
20 gr. of sweet, and 5 gr. of hot/sharp. But that should be changed to personal liking.
The recipe you used is a very good one.

Welcome back CW, hope you sort things out, get back up on the saddle, and you life returns to an atmosphere of normalcy. We kinda need you around here!

Pat, your csabai looks great. The colour is from the variety of the paprika you used and just because it is "Hungarian", they are not all the same. The real test will be in the texture and taste of the final product.

I will be skipping the Hungarian sausage as I have made a couple batches of it in the past three months and I am looking at trying something different. Today I am smoking the rest of my salmon and should have enough to last through the winter and give away to my daughters. I also cured some meat for a salceson (head cheese). I often watched my father make it, but this is my first crack at it. I am not using any specific recipe but it will be based on Marianski, Kutas and some of the ones made by the participants on the Polish WD site.

CW and El Ducko, exactly which recipe are we to use for the chorizo?

redzed,
Keep us informed on the headcheese you will be making shortly. I have made several, some with and without garlic, sweet and hot hungarian paprika and the next one will be with some polski ogorki pieces in them as well.
I am trying to copy a brawn my mother used to make many years ago.
Good luck,
Jan.

NorthFork, your csabai looks great, smoke it a nice mahogany colour, dry it a bit and I can guarantee you that you'll always will be making it for many years to come.
I will be making another 10 kg later this week.