Homemade Sausage Making

last of the hand cranked grinder sausage makers

Ross, does that make you a "gray-haired, grindin', geezer"?

Yes Mr. C.W.

That tongue sure is delicious. 5 star is what I mean.

I think it makes me a grey haired, grinding meat mince mixing savory sausage stuffin cookin geezer.

Some shots of my Project B Kabanosy

Cured meat ready for grinding. 8.5 lbs total weight

Grinding according to recipe

Mixed, stuffed into 22mm collagen casings

Just out of the smoker

Those on left rested at a warm room temp for three days, the ones on the left have been were in my new curing chamber at 60F and 75-80RH.

CW that "Waggin` Wagon Tongue" recipe is without a doubt a winner, but a ten pound tongue, especially from a young steer? What kind of steroids and hormones do you use to achieve such an oral behemoth?

My Kabanosy turned out quite satisfactorily, but I still have a long way to go in improving this sausage. I used 8.5 lbs of lean and fatty meat and all the ingredients in the recipe plus one clove of very fresh and strong garlic. I also cured the meat (salt and Cure #1) for two days before grinding. This was my first time using collagen and such narrow casings. Stuffing was awkward because the 22mm casings were too narrow to fit my 20mm tube! I had to use the 13mm tube which was too small and resulted in an inconsistently stuffed product. Further to this the crank on my stuffer was very tight because of the narrow tube and the fact that that there was barely any water in the mix making the move through the stuffer more difficult. You can see the uneven results in the pictures. Then I also had issues with my smoker, in that the heat did not distribute evenly and although I moved the trays around, the sausages finished unevenly. It also took a lot longer to get the IT to 150 than what is assumed in the recipe. I am thinking that I should graduate to something more serious than the Bradley.

Because I used ham and back loin meat rather than a butt, the colour is quite light and not typical to the Kabanosy that I used to buy at a good shop when I lived in Toronto many years ago. The taste, however is quite good and the sticks are disappearing fast, long before they are ready! I will definitely make these again because I like them and I want to improve my skills. I have turkey legs in the freezer and I'm thinking that if I add half pork, I could use the same spice combo and produce a tasty snack stick kabanosy z indyka.

I am now going to pack for my fishing trip to the Port McNeil area of Vancouver Island, about 4.5 hours drive from home. Hopefully the coho are still there. I am taking four varieties of sausage with me, along with an appropriate refreshment for each, so hopefully I will survive the ordeal in the wilderness. I leave early tomorrow and will be off the radar for a week.

Yes sir.

Just one question. Am I invited for lunch ?

Good luck on the fishing trip.

Hi Red, What? You never saw a ten pound tongue? Out here in the wide open spaces, we get lonely tendin` the herd at night. Sooooo... we round up the most talented ten of the herd and teach them musical skills. After a year or so, all ten are taken to the County Fair where they perform the CanCan on stage. The get so much recognition that they all start to swell with pride. Some go way over the top with this swelling up in pride thing and yes they become very large. I`ve had to take them back to the herd one at a time... each on a flat-bed 18-wheeler. It`s quite a site. A cow get spoiled with recognition and starts "lounging" on its back, wearing sunglasses and drinking lemonade while traveling down the highway on a flat-bed 18-wheel semi-trailer truck! Their ego is further fed as people stare and applaud as the danged animal goes by them on the freeway! Of course they continue to swell with pride until... their tongues weigh upwards of ten pounds!

And now, the rest of the story. The average cow moves its jaw (and tongue) 40,000 to 60,000 times per day. The average Bull-Shipper wags his tongue 200,000 times a day! And yawooops! Oh boy, another misprint. In my hurry to post, I meant to quote from my tongue recipe in the MRI. In the directions, it reads as follows:

Tongues from cattle vary in weight but if you are selective, you can find fresh, clean tongues from younger steers averaging about 3 pounds each. On the ranch, we used at least three of them to make a batch of about ten pounds.

Some people hesitate to eat beef tongue because of its appearance. Others consider it only a food for low-income populations. (Their loss!) Some fear the texture will be tough or rough. In fact, many fine cooks consider beef tongue to be a delicacy. It is widely considered the most flavorful among commonly eaten tongues - including lamb and pork. It can become tender and more appetizing in appearance when properly prepared. Because it is a muscle, beef tongue is high in protein, low in sodium, and contains no sugar or carbohydrates, making it an ideal food for people on low-carb, low-glycemic, or high protein diets. As an added benefit, it is also high in vitamin B-12, which boosts the production of red blood cells.

Red, in my rush (and half-awake state), it came out like El Ducko... (just plain goofy!). I inadvertently intimated ten "each" instead of ten pound "batch" (of three). I thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

"Don't Get Me Started!" Department:
...backpedaling (batch-pedaling?) at the rate of 2.3 tongue movements per second? Impressive, CW. Maybe the Pinocchio factor (nose growing when you lie) works on tongues, too! WooHoo! WooHoo! WooHoo!

But seriously, I wish I could get my talons on some of that recipe. It sounds delish-E-ous.

...and that's no bull!

"Reality Tastes Good" Department
Yeowwww! That kabanosy, uh, karboetsky, uh, kabanosy... that's REALLY GOOD!

Mine picked up some smoke flavor, despite a rather poor smoking job. I finished it off in the oven with a thermocouple probe, 154 degrees at 170 degrees oven temp. It went about two hours! (Bumped it up to 190 after 1-1/2 hours.) Pretty good weight loss, though, on the order of 20%. Cooled to room temperature, then cut into uniform lengths. Definitely worth repeating. ...maybe weekly!

My experience with the kabanosy is, er, fraught with luck. I stuffed it with my grinder (no cutting blade or plate, just a spacer) because I happened to have a stainless steel 3/8" tube for that, but not for my stuffer. Used the brown 22mm collagen casings. It was pretty darn easy. Maybe I already mentioned that.

Let it rest in the fridge for 24 hours, and cold smoked it the next night, which was a cool evening, in the low 60's F. For sausage smoking, I use a water smoker (without the water pan in this case), and an Amaz'n at the bottom. I filled the Amaz'n half full of pellets, hung the sausage in one long rope, and let'r go. I don't know how long it went -- maybe 4 hours -- because I went to bed. Love the Amaz'n for that! Hang the rope, go to bed. Rope-a-dope! I realize that smoking it this long is not traditional. Don't know what got into me.

That was Friday night. Saturday I stuck the sticks in the oven on 180 F, and promptly forgot about them. Two hours later, grim faced, I pulled them out.

Now, I grew up eating Slim Jims and pepperoni sticks from many a gas station, and I can't eat that stuff anymore. I have never had a quality meat stick, and certainly have never tasted kabanosy. But I can tell you that that these things came out great. I mean, wow! Out of this world. They are a huge hit.

The kids and I ate a few of them hot out of the oven because we couldn't restrain ourselves, and the rest went into the fridge where they have been developing more flavor, I suppose. We'll probably knock them off this weekend.

My 3/8 inch stuffing horn has since arrived and this weekend, if the septic tank behaves itself, I plan to make some more. This time using sheep casing, since I've got the right tube for it.

The other thing I will do differently - I want more carraway flavor, so I'll use some more and will toast the seeds and just crack them, as opposed to grinding them which I don't think I was supposed to do. Also, shorter smoking period. Even though I like the way they came out, I want to see the differene.

Will post pics tonight.

Hi Cabonaia,
I knew a buckaroo who stuffed casings with his grinder so long... that he eventually went berserk, jumped up on the kitchen table, drew both pistols, shot the ceiling full of holes, then dove headfirst out the kitchen window.
Hey, got to love that Amaz`n Smoker eh? Where were these things years ago? (Along with collagen casings also). You wrote:

I have never had a quality meat stick, and certainly have never tasted kabanosy. But I can tell you that that these things came out great. I mean, wow! Out of this world. They are a huge hit. The kids and I ate a few of them hot out of the oven because we couldn't restrain ourselves, and the rest went into the fridge where they have been developing more flavor, I suppose.

Uhhh.... Jeff, you`re supposed to dry these things a couple of days on the kitchen counter a couple of days before you eat `em. Wow, were the centers still mushy? When they dry, the flavors concentrate a bit more. I`ve found the texture is just right after about 3 days - just when the centers stiffen up a bit too.
This stuff will drive a patient man nuts. Kind of like a kid in a candy store eh? Glad you like `em. Sounds like you`ll make them again.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Hey Chuckwagon! My cactus jack (kabanosy) came out very well. Glad I went with the cactus jack with more pepper,caraway and nutmeg. Thank you for the test you gave us as I am NO microbiologist. But now with all that kabanosy in my gut and SURELY don't want to be horizontal or clock stopping. Please keep on posting more on microbiology, so we all stay on this side of the grass. It is really a science. One person told me, Heaven or hell don't matter as he has friends in both places.

My kabanosy are half gone and I'm not leaving on the fishing trip until tomorrow. They are addictive! My wife told me to hide them so that she would stop snackin' and I grab one every time I walk by the fridge.

Chuckwagon wrote:Jeff, you`re supposed to dry these things a couple of days on the kitchen counter a couple of days before you eat `em. Wow, were the centers still mushy?

Nope, they had a great texture all the way through. Keep in mind they stayed in a low oven for a couple hours (unintentionally) So they cooked through. To clarify, I've had them in my curing fridge for several days, which is in the low 50's F right now. There are only 2 sticks left...the kids hit 'em pretty hard while I was at work today.

I'll go post the pictures now.