Homemade Sausage Making

In quite a few recipes that I found online they required the addition of pinhead rusk or breadcrumb plus iced water. Here in Turkey we us a very fine Bulgar wheat for Kofte and cig kofte. Would that be a satisfactory substitute for pinhead rusk?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Inishta

Hi Inishta,

The bulgur flour might work, but will probably result in a different consistency than if you used a product that is made from a bread product. Using raw flour will make a more tightly bound product and that probably might be OK if you are making a finely ground sausage. But if you have a coarse grind and are adding something to make it more moist, I would stick to bread crumbs that you can easily pulverize at home in your blender. Pin head rusk is used mostly by commercial processors.

Thanks for that redzed. The Bulgur is not actually milled to flour but a grain that comes in fine or course texture. I'll give it a go and report back.

Inishta

Have you thought about making your own rusk. It is very easy.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopi ... onomy+rusk

As promised the report. I decided to make a chicken/turkey sausage with sun dried tomato, coriander/cilantro and various spices. I was concerned the bulgar would give a gritty mouth feel so went with 7% and the same of iced water. Everything came together well and after resting overnight I cooked a few.

The result was way beyond expectation. Succulent and flavourful with a firm texture. More experimentation with different varieties ahead. I'll up the wheat to 10% in the next lot. Sorry, no photos this time..........I'll try to remember in future.

Inishta

Glad that the bulgur experiment worked well. Another key to making moist sausages is to work in as much water as the meat itself will absorb. To accomplish this you need to mix the meat for an extended period of time, 5-15 minutes. And if your sausage turned out well with 7% why do you want to go to 10%? That amount is the maximum recommended for rusk.

How did you serve the sausages? Looking forward to seeing pics of the next sausage.

redzed wrote:Another key to making moist sausages is to work in as much water as the meat itself will absorb.

Hi Redzed - I am very interested in this comment. How do you know what the meat has absorbed as much water as it can? Also, what is the limit before you are in danger of over mixing? My cooked/smoked sausages have often come out too dry.

I realize this question may not belong in this thread....

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I was referring only to a fresh poultry sausage, you add a bit of water at a time, mixing vigorously, until the water is absorbed. Of course you don't want to create a slurry, but a nice soft sticky farce.

Now, if you want a moist smoked kielbasa, use a 20lean beef/80pork ratio. Beef will retain/absorb water much better than pork. And remember it is the meat, and not fat that has those properties, so use lean beef. Cube pork and beef into 1-2 inch pieces, keeping the meats separate. Add the salt and curing salt to the cubes, mix, cover and refrigerate for 48 hours. Grind the beef through a 4.5mm or 6mm plate. Mix the beef adding a bit of ice water at a time until no more water will be absorbed and the beef is still gluey. This can take 10-20 min or longer. Don't worry about over mixing. Grind the pork through a 8 or 10mm plate, mix the pork, also adding water, but not as much, until it becomes sticky. Bring the two meats together, add your spices and mix well. Don't smoke the hell out of it, two, three hours at around 140F should do it and then finish by poaching. You will have a beautiful moist sausage without using plant proteins, milk solids or phosphates.

Thanks for that info Chris

redzed wrote:You will have a beautiful moist sausage without using plant proteins, milk solids or phosphates.

Thanks Chris! That is exactly the advice I was looking for. I keep track of the formulas I use, and I'm going to add this to my kielbasa method. Will let you know how it turns out once I get to it.

Jeff