A few question after first sausage atempt


 

Bob Hunter

TVWBB Pro
Knowing that I wanted to start making my own sausages my brother gave me up a meat grinder as a Christmas present. I used it to make some ground beef and then the next usage was to grind up a pork butt for some breakfast sausage that I used to make pork sausage gravy for breakfast the next morning.

Used this recipe from here

Pork Butt 2.5 lbs
Salt 3 tsp
Pepper 1 tsp
<STRIKE>sage</STRIKE> 1 tsp (I didn't have any)
nutmeg 1/4 tsp
ginger 2/3 tsp
thyme(dried) 1 tsp
cayenne pepper 1/4 tsp
cold water 3/8 cup

Ground the pork with the fine plate and after mixing everything, I fried up some and found it wanting for heat so added another full tsp of cayenne pepper to my mixture. and it was tasty. So I refrigerated the mixture over night and the next morning I made breakfast.
I had a couple problems with the gravy / sausage.
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>1) The sausage was way too salty.
<LI>2) The sausage mixture was so gooey / sticky (It was to the point that while mixing it with my hands, my latex gloves were pulling off) I had a very hard time while browning it to get the sausage chunks small. I ended up with alot of pieces that were larger than marbles. My family prefers small pieces in their gravy.
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So I guess my question here would be:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>1) Do you think the additional cayenne would add to the saltiness of the sausage?
<LI>2) Would the missing sage affect this part of the flavor?
<LI>3) What would cause the sausage to be so sticky, and is this normal?
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I am exited about making sausages and want to get it right. I felt that making a simnple breakfast sausage was the way to go before moving on to things that take more time or are more complicated. My wife was not impressed with this first atempt and is now leary of me making other things besides just ground beef.

My bacon is now really good but, my first atempts were utter failures and it was really hard to convince my wife to let me keep trying. So getting my sausages acceptable early on is going to crucial or every time I want to make some it's gonna be a up hill battle.
 
First of all- get a digital weight, one that is ment for a few grams, maybe up to 500 grams.

Secondly, remember to keep everything cold during the whole grinding process. It is not good enough to put the mix in the fridge afterwords, it has to be cold all the way. Place as much as you can, the grinder, bowl and so on in the fridge for a couple af hours in beforehand. The same with the meat, ice cold, just thawed. My first tries on making sausages were just so-so, because I did not focus enough on keeping temps down.

Sage is the most important part of the spice mix in breakfast sausages.

I do not think that the cayenne causes the sausage of beeing too salty. i think you used too much salt, as simple as that.
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Sausage mixture is supposed to be sticky. I see the recipe says something about stuffing in cases, and then the sticky mixture would be quite OK. To use it it bits in gravy, I'd knead the dough less, and maybe use a coarser plate. You could also use less water.

At last, being Norwegian, I have a problem of your use of the word "sausage" for ground meat that is not in casings, so bear with me if there is a point that I have missed.

Making sausages is a profession. When you are an amateur, like me, and maybe you, you'll just have to accept that there are lots of things to learn, and that the result is not always perfect.
Personally, I aim for "edible or better".
 
I like 1.5% salt for fresh sausages by weight.

I agree with everything else Geir said.

By mixing the sausage mixture with salt you develop myosin which is a protein that binds the meat together. This is what made the sausage sticky. This is a very important step in making cased sausages, but like Geir said, not so necessary for loose sausage especially if you want it crumbled and not in patties.
 
For what it's worth, I use 4 tsp with 5 lb of butt when making fresh (uncured) sausage.

It's only there for flavour, not preservation. You'll know next time
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In fact, once you've used a "reduced" amount of salt in your next grind, fry up a pattie and test it. You can always add some more and re-mix before the final cooking/storage phase.

As far as sticky, as Geir says it's supposed to be. That's why everything (grinder, tubes, plate) should be ice-cold and the meat very very cold (not frozen but close to it) just prior to grinding.

It helps prevent the "stickiness" which causes grinding issues. And the grinder goes through the meat so fast, it's warming up during the process will not affect the grind.

Having said that, when I used my hand grinder, I never had it ice-cold (nor even in the fridge) prior to the grind. And that hand grind took about 60-90 minutes usually. Some smearing and occasionally had to clear out the plate but nothing serious.

Don't fret too much about this. It'll all work in the end.
 

 

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