Wrong texture everytime I try fresh/smoked sausages

[wasuky]

Hello guys! Well... as the subject says.

I have made 7 batches of fresh sausages and they all have ended up dry and crumbly. Last week I wanted to try a Kielbasa recipe. After a month struggling to find the marjoram I got the meat and set everything up. Ground the meat, mixed it , stuff it, smoke it, poach it, tested it and there I was again, almost crying.

I have to say that I used different meat/fat ratio in my first 6 batches, going from 80/20 to 50/50. They all ended up tasting good but the texture was awful.

It's funny. A day before trying this last batch I separated 300gr of the meat (200gr meat/100gr fat) but it was so late and I didn't want to make noise with the grinder. I used the food processor for a couple seconds to break 50-100gr of the meat, and the rest I just cut with a knife. The texture of this sausage was awsome and I was so proud (finally I made a semi-beatiful sausage). I knew I still had to work on the colour and the sking (it got funny after poaching) but the texture was almost like the one I am looking for.

The next day I called my brother and told him to bring his best music because that was the day he was going to eat the best sausage he's ever had. I got my 700gr meat and 300gr fat, froze them and started grinding. I ground 400gr using the 5mm disc, 300gr by hand into big chunks and the fat using the 5mm disc. First the meat, then the fat and back to the freezer. I started my mixer (the one to make cakes or to mix/kneed when making bread), first the meat, after a few minutes it was sticky so I added the fat. In this point I realized the fat was kinda mixing too much (maybe it was smearing) so I stopped and started stuffing. I smoked it for almost an hour and the poach them. After cooling and resting, this was the result (trust me... my face was worse than that).

So... maybe my mistake was grinding the fat? Maybe I should have cut it by hand? Maybe the mistake was mixing the fat using the machine? Maybe my mistake is even trying to make sausages?

[so_not_rad]

Hello bud.
I'm fairly new here as well but let me try to help you.
First of all please send us your whole recipe + procedure.
Curing times, grinding temps, smoking temperatures. Otherwise we will be shooting in the dark. If we don't know which steps you took we won't be able to help you.
Whos recipe did you base the kielbasa recipe on?

Refer to
viewtopic.php?t=5036 for tips
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5796 for fat smearing issues
otherwise feel free to just type in search for kielbasa recipes.

[wasuky]

So_not_rad, thanks for your reply. I can't remember where I got the recipe from, but I figure the recipe is not the issue as they all look similar. It calls for

70% meat with little connective tissue
30% backfat or jowl fat
,4% garlic
,15% marjoram
,3% black pepper
1,5% salt
,21% cure #1

-Cure my meat 2 days before with the salt and cure.
-Hours before grinding I put everything into the freezer.
-Ground like 30%-40% of the meat using the 5mm disc and the rest by hand into bug chunks (big enough so it wouldn't clog my little machine (I stuff using the grinder)). -Ground the fat using the same 5mm disc. And back to the freezer.
-Mix the meat using a regular bread kneeding machine at low speed for 3-5min.
-Added the ground fat (it didn't look as separate particles of fat after the grinding) which now looks as a paste) at this point I already knew something was about to be disappointed).
-After 1-2min I stopped the mixing and started stuffing. The mix, by then, looked somehow pink (due to the mix of the white fat paste and the red meat, of course). It was impossible to say where the meat and the fat was as it was already a pink paste.
-I stuffed and let rest for an hour before smoking.
-Now... I love in the Caribbean so it's always hot in here. Where I am, the average temp of the past few days was 31°C. I don't have a smoker yet so I use a big plant pot, burn some sawdust at the bottom and manage to hang everything at the top. I close it a piece of whatever I have near me. The temperature never goes up beyond 40°C, so I just smoke for an hour and poach immediately until internal temp is 71°C. During smoking the sausages never lose a lot of liquid (I would say a couple drops every couple seconds) as I never see too much liquid on the bottom of the pot. The same when poaching... The water doesn't get too oily.
- After poaching I cool down with running water and let rest at room temp (24-26°C) for 1-2 hours. After that I eat them or freeze them.

[Bob K]

-Added the ground fat (it didn't look as separate particles of fat after the grinding) which now looks as a paste) at this point I already knew something was about to be disappointed).

If would like to avoid fat smearing problems Never, ever grind the fat separately no matter what you have read on the internet. Even if frozen it will still end up a sticky mass that makes it difficult if not impossible to mix properly with even distribution. Always mix the fat with the meat and grind together. The moisture in the meat helps to separate the dryer fat. If you want larger pieces of fat in a recipe dice by hand.

[wasuky]

So by grinding meat/fat together would prevent the smearing when mixing (keeping everything as cold a possible) and this should give me a nicer texture?

What's the technical explanation for what I've experienced? I mean... The fat is there. Even when it leaks out a bit, it's never too much like to say that it ended up dry because of the fat leaking.

[Bob K]

Your texture problem could have been caused by, fat smearing, under mixing (only 1-2 minutes), or overcooking, so it is difficult to pinpoint.
Try following the processing directions in one of Redzeds well written recipes like this one viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9382 it should help a lot.
We have all had a bunch of failures so try not to get discouraged. Success is in the details

[Lorenzoid]

So by grinding meat/fat together would prevent the smearing when mixing (keeping everything as cold a possible) and this should give me a nicer texture?

What's the technical explanation for what I've experienced? I mean... The fat is there. Even when it leaks out a bit, it's never too much like to say that it ended up dry because of the fat leaking.

How much water did you add? Could it be crumbly because you didn't add enough water? The water, extracted proteins and fat all work together (okay, someone help me out here with the scientific explanation). I have been making fresh sausages a long time, using the simplest of recipes, but I am a relative newbie compared with others here.

The simple recipes I have used generally work with whole pork butt, which is nice and fatty. I just cube the whole thing, grind it, add water and spices, and mix the hell out of it until it is really sticky. I don't separate the meat into classes, but that is apparently part of what differentiates my hack recipes from the artisan recipes you'll see here. Someday I will give that a try.

[StefanS]

IMO-
1. over cooked during smoking or poaching
2.

Mix the meat using a regular bread kneeding machine at low speed for 3-5min.
-Added the ground fat (it didn't look as separate particles of fat after the grinding) which now looks as a paste)

fat in not right stage - plus can be a lot of unsaturated fat acids.
3. It looks like already fat was in liquid stage after finishing.
4. sausage/kielbasa should be cooled down to refrigerator temps. After just finishing and consumed hot will have that/very similar texture. (check - ugly kielbasa by Scogar )