Homemade Sausage Making

Hi Aaron,
Remember my email about some WA members. Janlab will be able to point you in the right direction with biltong making, curing, smoking and drying.
Good luck to you guys,
Cheers,
Jan.

Chuckwagon, I remember reading somewhere that the spices we add to fermented sausages should be sterilized, probably by irradiation. Have you ever heard of this?

Hi Steve, Chuckwagon no longer resides at this address. He saddled his hoss and rode out of town. While we miss him here, we have moved on and continue to make sausages. To answer you question, there are no existing regulations that spices used in dry-cured sausages ( or any sausages for that matter matter) be irradiated or sterilized. There are however, regulations respecting the processing and packaging of spices that you purchase. Using fresh herbs, spices and garlic is not recommended in dry-cured sausages.

Thanks, redzed.

I wanted to say Hi, new to this forum, looking for a recipe for Bob Evans, Owens Breakfast Sausage? Any help would be great, thanks

Welcome to the forum Hill country!

Poking around on the web found this: http://www.homesicktexan.com/2008/02/br ... n-day.html

also the Ingredients on the Owens label state that Ham and Loins are used so it sounds like it may be a lean sausage.

Thanks Bob K,I also found this recipe, but owns does not have sage in it, I think?

I have a question!!
I live in Vietnam, I make quite a few 'Hot smoked' Kransky sausage, for friends and a few restaurants(pocket money).... All is going swimmingly... But this week the weather has been crap, so today I cold smoked 7KG of snags, then, poached them(as the driving wind and rain, wouldn't allow me to get ANY heat in the smoker). We plummeted into the 'inky depths' of winter 22C/71F........
I have had successes poaching before, but today I have 7KG of dog food.

My poaching method, was: Start with cold water, then slowly bring the temp up to, 80C/176F..... I have 2 'Chef Alarm' thermometers... Internal temp was always around 10C lower than the water....... I cold rinsed at 69C/156F internal.

I am really careful with my prep temps (Ice water, near icy meat, near frozen fat, careful not to over mix and have a finished meat temp of <2C, Thick and sticky) I am pointing my finger at the poaching method.

I used collagen skins(as the restaurant want straight sausages).... Don't know why... I hate working with collagen! Nothing wrong with collagen, but natural skins are easy..... And natural!

The end product ended up with separated skins, hard feeling meat inside, cheese(Emmental) had gone to the skin surface... (Cheese was small dice 150g per kilo of meat and fat)....
Here in VN, at the market, you buy your warm fresh killed pork at 6am (Killed at 4.30-5.00) , (I only buy leg meat), then go to the stall that sells fat.... I understand that fat is important, I am really careful with my fat.... The 'back fat' here is about 5mm to 8mm thick, any thing else is oil.

Any help/advice with poaching (or any other problem, you can think of) I'd love to hear from you guys....
I read a lot of your work/advice, but I ask for help rarely.

Kind regards
Greg

Greg-
As far as the collagen casings separating I have had the same thing happen by smoking and then cooling in a water bath. It is best to let them air cool,or in your climate in the fridge. The water also effects the texture of the casings. I have never tried poaching them.

On the other hand there are many different types of collagen casings available.....

Anyone Else?

Hard to say what the problem was especially since you say that you have had success with poaching before. To begin with, I would check with the supplier/manufacturer of the casings and see whether the product you are using is suitable and made for poaching, Not all collagen casings can be poached, especially those that are deemed "edible". When poaching you should not shock the sausage by placing it into cold water after smoking and then bringing up the temp. The water temperature should be the same or slightly warmer than the sausage and then you bring it up to to 76-77C. I have also read in industry manuals that meat will adhere better to collagen casings if a binder is added to the farce.

I just did a batch of summer sausage. Batch 1 was venison and 20% fat, #2 was 50 50 venison and pork butt.smoked heavy in a 140 smoker for for hrs. then into a 160 degree water bath till I.T was 155. # 1 melted out, casing was full of grease. #2 was normal , very little grease in casing. Ive got three different alarms on my smoker plus me there the intire time keeping an eye on it to guard against over heating. The only thing I can figure is I was sold belly fat? Is there any way when buying fat you can be sure its back fat since its normally in a frozen block when I get it or is there another possible reason this happened. Thanks KD

pignout-

Back fat is usually in slabs and is "hard" or firm to the touch. If you are buying a block of pork fat it could contain a lot of the soft inner fat or leaf lard makes great lard but it sucks for sausage as it has a low melting point. And it sounds like thats what happened.

Any ways this is back fat that will go into salami tomorrow.....

This is a recipe that has been used in my family for generations. Have any of you used one like this? I have looked all over trying to find any info on it and have not seen it anywhere. Anyone know what the name of it is, or improvements that could be made? It has always been known to us as Lewis Ring Bologna Recipe. It is a delicious simple recipe. We love it. I have looked in Rytek Kutas book and did not see a recipe in there like it.

Lewis Ring Bologna
20 pounds pork
20 pounds deer or beef
1 cup brown sugar
1 full cup tenderquick
1 short cup canning salt
1/2 cup pepper
2 tsps garlic salt
Mix seasoning with 1 gallon hot water
Mix with meat add more water as needed
Smoke

Hey Loo030, welcome to the forum! When I first read your question about the Lewis ring bologna, I had never heard of it, so I thought I would search all my books and notes, before answering. Well I finally got around to doing some checking and I came up empty handed. Bologna is and American cousin of the emulsified sausage mortadella, which comes from Bologna, Italy. Most bologna products today have little resemblance to the Italian ancestor and there are so many variations of bologna out there. Yours is another take on this sausage.

The recipe you posted looks like an older basic home recipe. Easy to make and does not any exotic ingredients. Not too many people use Morton's Tenderquick anymore, but at one time it was the go to curing agent for anyone who made meat products at home. My wife's parents and grandparents used it on the farm when making sausages, ham and bacon. Today most of us use Cure #1, (aka as Prague Powder # 1 or Instacure #1).

I hope that the instructions about mixing the seasoning with hot water and then adding to the meat are missing the step to chill the water before adding to the meat?

I have a question about Pepperoni. The Recipe calls for 70% beef and 30% pork. Do I add another 30% fat to the mixture? Both my beef and pork are somewhat lean.