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Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 20:40
by redzed
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Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

My Easter sausage this year is a Polish kielbasa with the integral ingredients and made in the traditional way. The meats and proportions are what my father made for decades and it's the sausage that became very well known in his community. My father was only 15 when he began working in a sausage plant in Poland. Following immigration to Canada in 1960 he worked in the meat industry for eleven years before opening his own slaughter house and processing plant. While the main business was to serve the farming community with custom slaughter and meat cutting, as well as sale of pork and beef carcasses, he also made and sold this sausage. After he sold the business he continued to make and smoke sausage at home and usually could not keep up with the demand. Even at the age of 95, he would crank out 300lbs in a couple of days. My Dad passed away a year ago, but memories of his hard work and sausage making will always be with me.

Recipe for 1kg of meat
Pork, Class I, (butt and/or picnic) no connective tissue, very little fat, 400g
Pork, Class II, (butt and/or picnic) 35-40% fat, 500g
Pork Class III, (butt and/or picnic) rich with connective tissue, some fat, 100g
Ingredients
Salt, 16g
Cure #1, 2g
Pepper, medium grind, 3g
Fresh garlic, 6g
Marjoram, 1.5g
Nutmeg, 1g
All spice 1g
100ml. ice cold water
Processing Instructions
1. Cube and classify the meat, keeping the different classes of meats separate. Add the salt and Cure#1 to the cubed meat, mix well, pack into a container, cover, and refrigerate for 48-72 hours.
2. Grind Class I pork through 12mm plate, the Class II pork through 8mm plate and class III pork twice through the 3mm plate. Make sure the meat stays very cold. Placing in the meat in the freezer between the grinding may be necessary.
3. After the grinding Class III pork add all the spices and approximately 30% of the water. Mix and mix until you achieve a sticky but still loose paste. This meat will be binder for the sausage. Add this to the other ground meats and mix well. Add the rest of the water gradually. I mixed everything for 10 minutes in my 33lb. electric mixer.
5. Stuff into 36 hog casings. Twist into neat and uniform links.
6. Set the sausage overnight in fridge or for two hours at room temperature.
7. Preheat your smoker to 160F, let it cool, and load your sausage into it. Open top and bottom dampers wide and warm sausage at 110F for one hour. Smoke at 130-145F (55-65C) until the sausage takes on good colour. Rearrange the sticks mid way through the smoke.
8. Finish by poaching with water at a temp of170F (76C) until the internal temperature of the sausage reaches 152F (71C). Cool gently with water and hang at room temp. Don't over chill. The sausage should still be slightly warm inside when hanging to bloom.
9. Allow sausage to bloom at room temperature for two to three hours before moving to a cooler environment. Don't package the sausage for 24 hours.
Sausage is excellent when eaten cold. If heating, bring up to temp only, don't cook again.

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Dad in his shop, 1972

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 21:39
by Albertaed
Wonderful story. I’m honoured to give it an attempt.

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2021 02:23
by jjnurk
To add to that story...... One of my "customers" happens to be yours Dad's. He had often gone to your Dad's place, throughout the year for sausage. However, with your Dad's failing health, that came to a halt. He somehow heard about me and started to coming to me because "the stuff I make is the closest he's ever tasted" to what your Dad used to make. I really feel honored about that :D . R.I.P

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2021 04:40
by redzed
Albertaed wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 21:39
Wonderful story. I’m honoured to give it an attempt.
You won't be disappointed Ed, keep in mind it's the process that is so much important than the spices.
jjnurk wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 02:23
To add to that story...... One of my "customers" happens to be yours Dad's. He had often gone to your Dad's place, throughout the year for sausage. However, with your Dad's failing health, that came to a halt. He somehow heard about me and started to coming to me because "the stuff I make is the closest he's ever tasted" to what your Dad used to make. I really feel honored about that :D . R.I.P
Glad to hear that Joe. There are no secrets as to what was in the sausage, but what made it so good was the process. And I'll let you in on a small secret. When my Dad was really busy or did not have enough time to trim out the Class III meat, he would add a small amount of skim milk powder (the non-instant type) to help with the bind. That is something that he learned in Canada, certainly not in Poland. :D

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2021 14:56
by Dumoine
Red thanks for posting this wonderful authentic Polish kielbasa. I have wanted to make this for a long time and finally got around to it.

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It is a little more work to separate the three classes of meat, but it is worth it. The texture of the sausage is very good and I am proud to be able to make a sausage that was made and enjoyed by the people of Poland. I smoked it with apple and hickory. Next time I will leave out the hickory and just use apple. I think the hickory gave it a little too strong of a smoke flavor. I am curious as to what species fo wood your dad and the people in Poland usually use to smoke kielbasa with. I would like to try this again and smoke it with the wood that your dad used.

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 23:58
by bolepa
redzed, thank you for sharing your dad's sausage recipe! I appreciate that. Will be using this recipe for my next batch.

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2021 17:53
by redzed
Dumoine wrote:
Sun Jun 13, 2021 14:56
Red thanks for posting this wonderful authentic Polish kielbasa. I have wanted to make this for a long time and finally got around to it.
Sorry for not replying earlier but I was away camping and totally off grid when you posted that and then I returned home and went fishing for halibut for 3 days. Glad you that you made the sausage and that it turned out well. As I have tried to get the message across to everyone, is that the key to making good sausage is the process and not the spice combination. In Poland home sausage makers use a variety of available woods for smoking as we do here. Alder, beech and oak are popular, as are most fruit trees. In Canada my dad used a commercial coarse sawdust hardwood blend.
bolepa wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 23:58
redzed, thank you for sharing your dad's sausage recipe! I appreciate that. Will be using this recipe for my next batch.
Great to hear that! Make sure you post the results!

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2021 01:03
by Dumoine
That is good to know. There is a lot of oak and beech in my neck of the woods.

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2021 02:39
by Scogar
In Atlanta I use red oak, white oak, hickory, cherry, Bradford pear, red maple, peach, persimmon, and sassafras. I have not tried river birch, Hackberry, sycamore, or tulip poplar. And i do not know the toxicity of dog wood, magnolia, crepe myrtle, or weed species such as privet...but I do like the mix and match that one can get by mixing things up

Re: Kiełbasa Taty - Dad's Sausage

Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2021 14:30
by fatboyz
Well it's my turn to try this. Meat is cubed, classed and in the salt/cure last night. As I do with most of my sausage, it will be a mix of 50% pork and 50% deer. Because the deer is so lean I used 50% butt and 50% belly trim for the pork. Processing will be on Saturday. Also doing up 20 pounds of Brats, also 50% deer, 50% pork.