Homemade Sausage Making

Another favorite snack from South Africa, along with Biltong is Droewors (dried sausage).

Droewors is a Beef / Lamb dried sausage, and I ventured to come up with a workable recipe put together from a few on the Internet.
Cure # 1 was also added on recommendation of Chuckwagon, it adds an esstential safety margin; in the end I could not see or taste the difference.
Below are the results of my first sample attempt, IMO it came out very good for first time.

There are 2 things I will have to change on the next batch:-
1) This time I used 24-26 mm Sheep casings, next time I will use 20 mm Sheep casings.
2) The sausage dried too quick on the outside with the tell-tale small hollow in the middle after a few days, so on the next batch the humidity will be a bit higher.

The formulation for my sample batch is below, to my taste preference the spices are mild and they render a tasty "meat" flavor, some people may prefer to increase the quantities if they prefer a stronger spice taste.

2 lb ground Beef Chuck (Fat separated below) *
3 oz Beef Fat
7 oz ground Lamb

10 gram salt (~1-1/2 tsp)
0.7 gram ground black pepper (~1/3 tsp)
1.7 gram singed, ground Coriander seeds (~1 tsp)
4.8 gram Allspice (~1 tsp)
0.2 gram ground Cloves (~1/4 tsp)
1.2 gram ground Nutmeg (~1/2 tsp)
1.7 gram Cure #1 [Pink Salt] (~ 1/2 tsp)
1 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar (or Brown Vinegar)
1 Tbsp Worcester sauce
(Optional: 1/4 tsp Garlic powder)

(* Do not use Pork or Veal meat)
This sausage can also be made using only Beef.


The Lamb and Beef fat were semi frozen then ground through the medium plate


Beef was ground through the course plate


Beef, Lamb and spices added


Busy mixing


My little scale



All stuffed and ready to hang



Hanging in my modified Refrigerator at around 45 F


I took one stick and added some Hickory smoke at 120 F in my little faithful smoker to see how it would taste, it was ok but I prefer the non-smoked Droewors


Day 3 of drying


After day 5 they looked good on the outside


That little tell-tale hollow in the middle from too low humidity, but the taste was very good.

Hi Bubba,
They look nice and smooth on the outside. I have only ever tasted one as a sample from a local Japie butcher. His had no hollow on the inside but looked flattened as in squeezed flat and very un-even on the outside. Your droewors don't look fatty at all, his were.
Thanks for sharing your recipe,
Jan.

Hi Jan,

These guys that stuff a bunch of fat into their Droewors take a chance, I don't like all the fatty stuff because it tastes very "smudgy". Droewors is supposed to be just about pure meat, that is why mine is so dark.
And yes I got a hollow in the middle, but that's because I dried them too fast, will fix it next time by increasing the humidity.
I think some Butchers flatten the Droewors to hide stuffing inconsistencies, and too much fat as said above.

Real Droewors maintains its shape good in general, I'm the better Japie Hahaha.

Ron

Out-dang-standing Bubba!

Hi Bubba,
Well done wors looks great, you can make it with pure beaf or mixed with game and from what I read in the media some donkey as well. The most common fat used is brisket which can be a problem to get hold of during the hunting season.
The reason that it is usually flat is firstly to remove any air that may be trapped and secondly to speed up the drying process. A good way to achive that is to flatten it out, lay it on a grid until it has started to set , then hang to complete drying.

Maz wrote:The reason that it is usually flat is firstly to remove any air that may be trapped and secondly to speed up the drying process.

Thank you Maz!
Ah I always thought that by flattening it they hide a bad stuffing practice and maybe some not so good meat quality (like the one that Jan tasted) along with excessive fat.

If it creates that tell tale hollow again on the next batch, even when I use 20mm casings, I will start flattening

Chuckwagon wrote:Out-dang-standing Bubba!

Thank you!

That looks very good.

Looks great! This is an interesting sausage to me......in 5 days you have a safe, edible, dried sausage without any cooking?

TD

Hi TD,
You wrote:

This is an interesting sausage to me......in 5 days you have a safe, edible, dried sausage without any cooking?

You can have a "safe, edible, dried sausage without any cooking"... in just 2 days! IF you use Bactoferm™ LHP. It gives the flavor a tangy (sour) fermented quality.
Bubba`s sausage is dark because it is all beef. He got the whole batch a little too close to El DuckO and the "hot air" dried it a little too quickly, leaving his sausages a little hollow in the centers. With Bactoferm, the drying is controlled and not so wild as that renegade "Bubba - the animal!"

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Chuckwagon wrote:dried it a little too quickly, leaving his sausages a little hollow in the centers

My first attempt Droewors was ....WAS (because I already ate it ) just user friendly, that was a "smilie" in the middle.

Smilie like this

Yeah, uh-huh! I still think you are a "party animal"!

Just to check - 45℉ is about 7℃. How long in total do you hang it for - just the five days, or longer?

I'm glad we're coming into winter, because I want to make some of this, but the days are a little hot at the moment, and my fridge would be a little cold. I guess that's where the modified fridge comes in.

This is another of our favourite snacks, and we used to have a local butcher that made it regularly, but when we moved up the coast, our supply of Droewors vanished.