Homemade Sausage Making

Back to the roots! Made a small batch of old country style garlic sausage. Nothing exotic, 4kg pork 0.5kg goose breasts and 800g back fat. No fillers or anything else. Added extra fat and cured chunks of meat for 48hrs just like the old days. Seasoned only with salt, pepper, a hint of marjoram and a load of garlic (two large cloves of homegrown per kg). Stuffed into three different sizes of hog casings. Delicious, and the whole house (and the neighbourhood) have the aroma of heaven. And with this stuff you don't need a flu shot!
[/i]

Red,
Now you are talking my language. Plenty of garlic is right up my alley, especially the home grown variety. They look great!!!!!!!!!
Please post the recipe, I am especially interested in the cured chunks in the recipe.
I will have to make them with 100% pork though.
Cheers,
Jan

kielbasa wyglanda bardzo apetycznine!!! great job

Boy howdy those look great! About 6-7 hours in the new Pro 100? How did different size casings work in relation to things being done, did they all come off at pretty much the same time? RAY

sawhorseray wrote:Boy howdy those look great! About 6-7 hours in the new Pro 100? How did different size casings work in relation to things being done, did they all come off at pretty much the same time? RAY

I dried them at 130 for an hour or so, after preheating the smoker really well, at 1250 watts, then flipped it down to 650 and smoked the sausage at 130 for a couple of hours then bumped up the heat to 160 for another couple of hours (it took longer than an hour to reach 150). When the thinner ones were at 142 and the fat ones at 128 or so, I finished them off by poaching.

Still learning the idiosyncracies of the Pro, but these turned out OK. The one thing that I'm discovering is that the sawdust/chips don't last very long in it. Gonna have to order a large sack of dust.

I start out smoking sausage at 130° after drying for a hour at 110°, but only bump up the temperature 2-3 degrees every 15-20 minutes until I reach 165°, I don't go any higher than that to smoke sausage. I fill the chip tray just about full, maybe a half inch from the top, and moisten the wood chips with a spray bottle of water. I like to hollow out a little hole with my index finger in the middle of the chips right before putting them on the burner. Each pan full seems to last me 3-4 hours before needing a change. Make sure to spray or wipe some lubricant on the door gasket, mineral oil works well, and don't have the latches any tighter than just keeping the door closed during storage. If the latches are too tight and the gasket isn't lubed it'll come off when you have to use a pry bar to get the door open, the smoke residue will glue the door shut, pain in the butt.

I'm going to try the poaching method again in my turkey roaster pretty soon. I've paid attention to past posts of Norcal Kid and Cabonia and it seems the pics show the long-stemmed thermometer being held at the right depth with a cork to hold it in place. RAY

Outstanding Chris!
Just curious... how did you prepare the garlic? Cooked? Toasted? Raw?
Wow, that stuff looks tasty!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

CW, know that stewed garlic is preferred by some, but I stuc to the old method of using raw garlic. I did however, liquify it in a bleder wirh the required water.

Ray, thanks for heads up on the sticky door. I actually did have some problems opening it after only one smoking session.

Looks great! I'd like to give it a try, but need a little clarification or a recipe please.

Your comment, "Added extra fat and cured chunks of meat for 48hrs just like the old days", could you tell if this is pork back fat and how much. Also, could you explain the cured chunks of meat.
Many thanks!

Hey Rick, I used class II pork and added some back fat. Don't know what the percentge of the fat was, but prob. 35%. I cured the chunks of meat with the nitrite and salt in the fridge before grinding and adding the other ingr. That is the way they do it in Poland.

Great looking sausage, congrats! I will add this one to my list.

Red, I’d like to do this recipe, but need a bit more info. How much of each spice are you using, either by weight or percentage of total meat weight. In regards to the additional cured meat and fat, I’m assuming this amount (which you don’t say how much) is in addition to
the starting amount plus the goose breast. So my question would be how much additional cured meat are you adding? What is your 48 hour process for curing this additional meat? What size grind plate are you using for all this?
Thanks for the clarification on this recipe.