Homemade Sausage Making

Hello..I'm not happy with the texture of my first Chorizzo breakfast sausage.....it is way to crumbly....and dry......Can anyone please tell me how I've achieved this and how not to do it again......Thanks

Hi Aaron,

Without having a little more info, it's hard to zero in on one cause leading to the crumbly texture. Usually the main cause is not mixing long enough for the proteins to bind the meat. If you made a Mexican style chorizo and added vinegar, that also might be the cause. Other considerations are lack of salt and or too much fat. Or maybe you over cooked it?

Having said that, many folks don't really care about the consistency of fresh chorizo since they break it up anyway and use it to flavour the dishes they are making.

Describe what you did and we'll have another go at analyzing the problem.

redzed

redzed wrote:Describe what you did and we'll have another go at analyzing the problem.

redzed

Hi Redzed....Thanks for your reply
I made a Spanish Chorizzo using top quality organic Pork Shoulder also a couple of hocks that I had brined and hot smoked. I used a cup of pork stock as my liquid as well as a cup of apple cider vinegar..2 tbs Cayene, 2tbs Paprika, 2tbs Smoked Paprika, 1 whole crushed and chopped Garlic and black pepper and 3% salt to total meat ...I put through a medium plate grind then.....
I mixed it all by hand and left it overnight in the fridge as I had ran out of time to finish the job the same day.
Following day I stuffed into hog skins...left in fridge overnight before I put into ziplock bags for freezing......I kept some fresh that were really tasty ..a little on the dry side but not as bad as the defrosted ones.....I defrosted in a fridge for 24 hrs before cooking...I can't find the exact recipe I followed...

Hmm, 2 cups of liquid to how much meat? And 3% salt is an awful lot to use in a fresh sausage.

Just under 8 kilos of meat...about 17 lbs of meat

The amount of liquid for the amount of meat was fine. Your meat was OK as far as the fat and lean meat ratio. And pork hocks contain dark well muscled meat that has the best binding qualities. So you probably did not mix the meat enough to activate the myosin, the stuff that makes the farce sticky. Next time around mix the meat really well, adding the liquid to it gradually as you mix, and keep the meat as cold as possible to avoid fat smearing. And use less salt! 1.5% is enough to get the myosin going and good for taste and your blood pressure. And don't over cook it.

ok...Thanks for your help.....thinking back you could be right about the mix as it was freezing my hands off...the meat was so cold I had to keep stopping or I would have got frost bite!

Another reason why I had perhaps not mixed enough is that I like a chunkier texture and the more I was mixing the meat the more emulsified it was looking and I was perhaps preferring the meat to stay in tact more...I guess I should have ground through the courser plate but I chose the medium plate because the recipe suggested it

In this case I am going to say it's all about the vinegar. All of the Chorizo I have made is fresh and has always called for vinegar. If you want it to bind then you will need to leave most or all the vinegar out of the recipe. Personally I prefer the taste of the chorizo with the vinegar and either make real concentrated effort when flipping he patties not to let them fall apart. Usually to no avail..........I suppose if you left the vinegar out there would be enough other spices to keep it chorizo-y tasting.


V-465

I agree that the vinegar is likely your source for crumbly texture, in fact, that's the way it's supposed to be. I personally would have added a little fat to the mix but that's my preference.

On a side note, sausagemaneric, you can keep your patty's a little more together by wrapping them in caul fat a la crepinettes.