Homemade Sausage Making

2/3 of the meat and most of the fat ground through an 1/8 plate 1/3 of the meat in lean chunks. 2% salt, .25% cure#1 and 1% brown sugar. Distribute the cure mix before grinding. mix everything until very sticky after grinding fill 3.5 inch fiber casing as firmly as possible. Smoke over beech wood for 9 hours cold, finish in 170°F oven until IT =135°F. About 5 hours.



Finished weight 4.5 pounds.

Wow Ross, that's a beautiful sausage. Is it for the church breakfast project coming up soon? Is that an original recipe pard? If so, what do you call it. Will you let me list it in the MRI?

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

I think it is a variation of one or two that I have seen in Marianski's book or in the online recipe list. Be assured that it works well.

Ross, I'm in my second childhood, maybe that's why I keep forgetting if I'm invited for tasting your creation......

The best I can do is say how I make it.

Dang that looks tasty! Joe (Gulyas) and I will be at your front door for breakfast tomorrow! We'll be on my Harley. El DuckO will be in the sidecar tied up with rope!

I may try it with the sons of bees formula. It seem to me to be a good utilization of the butts.

Yes, yes, yes! Take photos please.

We shall see how much gets sold tomorrow to determine when I will need to make more. A great advantage to this is it is 24 hour bacon instead of 2 weeks. and the distribution of fat is uniform.

Thank you for your offer Ross, I see you posted the recipe too.
Now I'm busy with about a thousand plants of mine.
Soon it'll be gardening season in my part of the world too.
But I like your sausage very much, sometime when I'll have a day, I'll try it out.

Ross, my ol' friend...
Is that about 5 lbs of sausage? What a great way to make a bacon sausage. The photo of the cooked product is mouthwatering.
I've got a question though. You wrote:

finish in 170°F oven until IT =135°F. About 5 hours.

Will you allow me to boost up your formula a couple of degrees (to destroy any possible trichinella spiralis) at 138°. The texture will not suffer even if you prep-cook it into the lower 140's. Man o' man... this stuff looks terrific. How about letting me help you write up a recipe and a name for it? We could call it Ross' "Buckaroo Bacon", or how about.... "Barb Wire Bacon"? Or... "Bullshipper's Bacon". Geeeeze.... we could even call it Maryland Mystery Meat!

CW that works for me. When I cut meat for grinding I start with portions equal to about half a butt that I have hard frozen and then allowed to warm up in the fridge for about 12 hours. That way it is still frozen but soft enough to cut cleanly into inch thick slices. Then I cut the slices into chunks sorting the lean from the fat . About 1/3 lean and 2/3 fat. I mix the salt 1.8% , cure#1 .25% and the brown sugar 1% in a bowl and sprinkle the mixture over the two bowls of meat. There is twice as much fat meat as lean meat so the distribution follows that ratio. I mix it that way and then grind the fat meat first coarsely and then through a 1/8 plate. I mix the lean into the fat mince and allow it to warm up until the lean chunks have thawed soft. I mix several times to keep the mixture at a uniform rate of warming and it is still very cold. When the chunks of lean are soft I stuff into a 3.5 fiber casing that has been soaking since I started mixing. I use a #303 can with both ends cut out for a funnel. Shaking and squeezing and needle venting air pockets as I fill. When I am through the finished sausage will almost bounce. I wipe the outside clean and put it in the smoker as soon as I can get a controlled fire going. I smoked this one over beech wood for about ten hours. When I brought it in I wiped the outside of the casing clean of a light film of soot and put the link in the oven at 170°F. At midnight it had reach 130°F and I set the oven controls for 2 more hours and went to bed. When I next saw it there was a tablespoonful of fat cooked out and it had cooled and I moved it to the fridge.

It was well received today at the festival and several asked if I would make it for sale.

Grrrrrreat! Thanks for sharing Ross!
I'm glad it was well-received at your breakfast function.

Best Wishes,
Rock ChuckWagonTrack