Thinking of making some fresh sausages.


 

Dustin Dorsey

TVWBB Hall of Fame
1. Don't know if this technically would go under bbq or what. I've got the meat grinder attachement and sausage stuff for my wife's kitchenaid. Anyone have any experience with this? I'm not looking to get a dedicated sausage stuffer just yet.

2. I bought some hog casings online and they are made China? Do these things go through the FDA? Will they kill me?

3. I'm really wanting to make some central texas style beef sausage. I'm wanting a recipe with beef and lots of black pepper. I'm wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction there. Should I use brisket flat, chuck? Do I need to add fat, should I just use trimmings?
 
1. Get your raw chunks of meat sprinkle with your seasonings, and grind through the plate once. Pull off the head and clean out the bits of meat in the neck and the ones that get stuck between the plate and knife. The reason for doing that is so that the meat will run faster the 2nd time and won't "burn" while going through the grinder. Put back on top and mix well - feed through grinder into your casings.

2. Hog casings may of come from China but I suspect they originally came from U.S. hogs - we export a LOT of pork to China. Even not, if you bought them through a reputable merchant here in the USA you should be fine. Just make sure you flush the casings first, even if they say they were pre-flushed. You can open one end of the casing up try to get it around your faucet and slowly run some warm water through them (you can generally do this with hog casings - sheep or lamb casings are a different story).. Any unused casings when you are done, put them in a container and sprinkle some table salt on them, and put back in the fridge, they should be good for a month or two.

3. It's unusual to see a "fresh" all beef sausage - they can tend to be a little dry, I would get the cheapest chuck trimmings or roast you can get. Chuck meat should be down in price right now, briskets because of demand will be higher. You definitely want a little fat in it so it will retain some moistness - I would be shooting for a 75/25 or 80/20 blend. If you can find some chuck roasts with some good marbling, you could probably use them straight up.

Can't help with a recipe - but if you get serious about this I would suggest a good charcuterie book. Hope this helps - Good luck with your endeavor!
 
What I mean by "fresh" is just uncured, uncooked. Then I'll smoke them or whatever. I do wanna learn to cure meat as well. Right now my aim is that all beef central texas type sausage such as at Kreutz Market or better yet Louis Mueller's. They may add pork for all I know but I'm craving that mostly beef flavor.

I'll look into getting about good book. I was going to try it this weekend but I might wait until next weekend to do more research.
 
I would start with a small batch first. 5 lbs or less. Before you stuff your sausage to do a fry test to ensure you got flavor you are looking for. Lots of places on the internet offer sausage seasoning kits, some are very good, so you might want to see what you can find. Have fun and best of luck
 
I'm researching Texas style sausage right now as well. From what I've read of all the recipes I've looked at is that there is some pork added, usually shoulder. What seems to vary is the proportions. In some I see 3 parts pork to 1 part beef. I've seen one where the proportions are reversed, 1 part pork shoulder to 3 parts beef. Don't know if that helps any Dustin but just thought I'd share what I've come across what I've found this far.
 
Dwain, your cooks are the ones that inspired me to wanna do this. Thanks for the advice!

I remember reading somewhere that the Lockhart guys don't cook their sausage right. They don't cook at the lower temp, then the higher temp so their fat runs out everywhere. Eventually I'm going to cook them right. I've seen how you guys set up for lower Temps. Believe me I'll be checking and taking notes.

I I'd chicken out on doing it this weekend. I'm probably going to make it next weekend. Make me wish I'd saved some brisket trimmings!
 
Really good advice in this thread. Beef sausage can be dry that's why you see pork or phosphates added to it. You can try with suet but some people don't like the flavor.

Stuffing with an auger driven grinder is a tough task and it can be slow going. cold cold cold is what you need. If the stuffing is too much of a PITA remember bulk sausage tastes just as good.
 
Which Kitchen Aid are you using to power your grinder? Some advice on that - freeze your meat first - or get it close to freezing - definitely colder than just in the refrigerator. I use a Pro 600 Kitchen Aid to grind 5 to 10 kilos of pork or beef (12 to 23 pounds) every month or two. Do not waste your time trying to use it to stuff your ground meat into casings. Major work, big headache, poor result. But for grinding the meat, it is good. The newer blades kind of suck, so you might want to look at the Butcher-Baker for their replacement blades or SmokeHouse Chef's 6 piece accessory kit. See my links below.

SmokeHouse Chef: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00UVZHPWU/tvwb-20

Butcher Baker: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00DK7O6PK/tvwb-20
 
Prep your meat the night before and get it really cold, it will grind a lot better. Also taking off the silver skin and sinew stuff will make it a lot easier to grind too. the Kitchenaide grinder works pretty good but stuffing sausage with it will test your patience, Its okay if you only use it a couple of times but if you plan on making sausage often get a dedicated stuffer.
 
I think I'm actually going to do it today. I'm going to us a cheap top round roast I found with some brisket fat to make an 80/20 mix. I'm probably going with a very simple mix of salt and pepper and cayenne, maybe come paprika for color. I'll probably pick up a digital scale and get used to measure the spices by percentage of mass. This way if I get into cured sausage it's not a big jump. I'm thinking 1.5% salt and pepper and go from there.

As far as smoking the sausages goes I thought I saw some good posts from some of you guys on how you set up your wsm. I'll try to dig it up. Wish me luck and pray for my wife!
 
Well I made some sausages. It surprising went pretty well with the kitchen aid. I started with the smaller stuffer tube and that didn't work AT ALL. I went to the bigger one and it was smooth sailing from there. I went with 2% salt and pepper. I put in some cayenne, and some paprika. I know, its probably pretty boring to start with but we'll see how it goes. I'm about to just cook up this first link on the kettle offset with smoke, probably close to 250 and see how that goes. I don't feel like firing up the wsm. I only made about 3 lbs this time. I'll post some pics later on. Hopefully it tastes allright!
 
Well I made some sausages. It surprising went pretty well with the kitchen aid. I started with the smaller stuffer tube and that didn't work AT ALL. I went to the bigger one and it was smooth sailing from there. I went with 2% salt and pepper. I put in some cayenne, and some paprika. I know, its probably pretty boring to start with but we'll see how it goes. I'm about to just cook up this first link on the kettle offset with smoke, probably close to 250 and see how that goes. I don't feel like firing up the wsm. I only made about 3 lbs this time. I'll post some pics later on. Hopefully it tastes allright!

I never followed up on this. I wound up making the sausage too salty and put in WAY too much black pepper, but I was happy with it. I used beef though, with beef fat and I'm not sure on the texture.

I'm making some sausage this weekend and I'm going with an andouille recipe.

I'm going to follow this most likely though I might tweak it a little. I've got some instacure#1 now.

http://www.nolacuisine.com/2005/11/14/andouille-sausage-recipe/

I plan on smoking it in the wsm and I'll probably copy Dwain's setup. I'm using pork shoulder. The problem is that it's enhanced. Not sure if this will make it too salty. I've also got a 2 lb chuck roast I might grind up and use as well with the shoulder I have left over and wing something. I'll probably freeze most of the andouille for making gumbo.
 

 

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