Homemade Sausage Making

I am new member trying to post the letter below, and I get this error - Please help and post it for me. Thank you very much. Marc

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My letter I want to post ----

I am brand new here on this forum, and am VERY impressed with the technical depth of knowledge here.

This is from what I can see, the most technical sausage making forum in the World.

I feel VERY honored to be able to post my question here.

This is a VERY important question to me, way tooo long to type why.

Summed up, would you folks PLEASE give me the total salt % by weight in your (very basic layman term "Polish// Ukrainian/ Eastern European lightly smoked usually pork sausage". ??

It may require some arithmetic/ mathematics done by you.

I know it's somewhere between 1 - 3%, but need more accurate range.

My problem is I HATE over saltiness, and I need info for that reason.

Here in the USA, almost all commercially sold sausage is at 2% minimum, plus, WAY WAY too salty for my taste, not what I grew up with from Polish/ Ukrainian immigrant meat markets,DELICIOUS, NOT too salty.

I have geographically moved from there, and need to find a local Butcher that will make with LESS salt then people are used to here.

It is GARBAGE , even if good sausage, because WAY WAY tooo much salt.

So I need to know what salt % to ask him to make for me.

I have been on a search for this for 10 years now since I moved, the DELICIOUS sausage of my Childhood is not available where I live now.

My Son came to visit me from Brooklyn, New York City, and he brought WONDERFUL NOT salty sausage from a Polish Immigrant owned Meat Market/ Smokehouse.

BUT, VERY unfortunately, they have closed forever, so I am unable to ask them "What salt %" they made.

Neither is available here in Texas WONDERFUL smoked fish, but that's another separate problem.

I used to live near the Great Lakes of America (Lake Superior) where we had WONDERFUL "cold water" various smoked fish.

Now I am in Texas, USA, NO such thing here.

This is very important to me, the sausage salt % question.

Thank you all so much, Marc

Please add to my post attempt letter - I am a "newbie", have never made sausage and am too Elderly to start a new interest hobby.

Even though this all interests me VERY much.

I just need to know what salt % to tell my local sausage making Butcher Smoker to make me.

THANK YOU ALL again !!!! Marc

Sortof a hard question to answer because the answer is so subjective.

That aside, in fresh sausages there are many recipes that call for 1.8% some even as low as 1.5%.

Maybe get your butcher to make what you want using 1.5% and go from there.

Welcome to the Forum Marc.
I agree with Butterbean, how much salt in food is very subjective and 1.5% is definitely on the low side.

Not really sure what problem you had posting but apparently you figured it out with a successful post

Note to Admin - Would you please move this Thread to the "Sausage" Forum section?

Or , to where you feel appropriate.

It would not accept the Posting when I tried, as I explain above.
Thank you, Marc

To echo their thoughts, 1.5% should be a good place to start. I'd be surprised if you found that to be too salty.

Also, I think you should reconsider... You can NEVER be too elderly to start making sausage!

Hello Marc and welcome to the forum! Salt is one of the most important and essential ingredients in sausage. It works in extracting the proteins that bind the ground meat giving you the right texture, it enhances the flavor and preserves the sausage. How much salt is indeed a matter of personal taste, and for a lightly smoked Polish sausage seasoned with pepper, garlic, marjoram and maybe a hint of all spice and nutmeg, I would add 1.8 percent (18g/kg) and with .2 percent Cure≠1 (.2g/kg), that would make it 2 percent salt content. You could probably reduce the salt by .2 or .3 per cent, and still have a decent sausage. You could also add a small amount of sugar, around .3 percent, to mellow the taste salt in the sausage.

Was thinking on this and here is a way you might solve you problem without much cost other than time.

Get some ground pork and a good set of scales. Weigh a small portion of the pork and add a specific amount of salt to it and mix well then wrap in plastic and submerge in simmering water to cook. This will give you test samples you can try for each % salt combination till you find what you are looking for. It shouldn't take much meat or time to do this.

But like Redzed mentions, you can dampen the saltiness with sugar if you get too low and the bind sufferers.

Butterbean wrote:Was thinking on this and here is a way you might solve you problem without much cost other than time.

Get some ground pork and a good set of scales. Weigh a small portion of the pork and add a specific amount of salt to it and mix well then wrap in plastic and submerge in simmering water to cook. This will give you test samples you can try for each % salt combination till you find what you are looking for. It shouldn't take much meat or time to do this.

But like Redzed mentions, you can dampen the saltiness with sugar if you get too low and the bind sufferers.

Very good thinking, I need to borrow an appropriate scale hopefully, and try that.

Mathematicaly, % wise, no problem, just not sure I can borrow a scale that is small accurate enough for the salt.

I may, with some research, find equivalent volume/weight for the salt, to measure w sub teaspoon measuring spoons.

Thoughts?

If I could do it all by volume, without weight scale, then very simple.

I will think about this.

Good logical thinking.

Marc

REdzed - I do overall prefer "sweet" meat.

----Whenever we cook anything, we use VERY minimal salt.----

It is not for dietary nutrition reasons, but TASTE. We dislike almost everything Salt


What happens when the type of sausaqge I am talking about has way less salt, like maybe 1% or even less?????



Like pasta sauce, we ALWAYS add sugar.

And baking store bought City ham, drench in sweetened orange/ Pineapple.

Any BBQ sauce, add sugar. A lot.

So thank you, I will keep that in mind. Thank you for response, Marc

I'd stay clear of volume measurements and go with weight since not all salt has the same volume/weight equivalents. A cheap postal scale should work I'd think.

I can't speak for any smoked sausages, but I make a lot of fresh Italian sausage. We have one specific recipe from a local store that a lot of people like, although one my friends feel it is over salted. My friend used to work at the store, so he knew the rest of the recipe. We duplicated the sausage, although we use 1.5% salt. It is definitely not over salted. Again, this is for a fresh sausage that is either cooked immediately or vacuum packed and frozen. For cured sausages, I always use 2.5% combined with the recommended .25% #2 cure. Hope this helps.