Texas Hot Guts Revisited.


 

Dustin Dorsey

TVWBB Hall of Fame
Texas Hot Guts


I decided to revisit my sausage recipe. I called it Texas Beef Sausage in an earlier post but since I also put pork in it, I figure that's false advertising.
I general put my sausage recipes in percentages and use metric measurements. This allows me to easily scale a recipe up and down based on how much meat I have.
I use two kitchen scales.



The one on the left is just a standard kitchen scale. I use it to weigh my meat. I use the scale on the right because the one on the left isn't accurate enough to measure very small amounts of seasoning.
The scale on the right is an AWS-600 that can easily be found on amazon. I weigh the meat+fat and calculate all the other ingredients by percentages.


Here are the ingredients I use. If you'll notice I have some herbs in there. This is just me, being me. For a more authentic style sausage just omit them.

The recipe goes like this

6 parts beef
2 parts pork
1 part brisket fat

1.5% Kosher salt
1.5% Black pepper
0.25% Cure #1
0.05% Cayenne Pepper
0.05% Marjoram
0.05% Sage

10% Water


Here's my cubed up chuck roast, pork rib scraps and beef fat. Try to trim out any tough silverskin. It can wrap around your grinder blade and smear your fat.


Here's my worksheet. I put in some standard measurements for those of you that just will not use metric.

It goes like this for a 5 lb batch:

3lb 4oz Chuck Roast
1lb 2 oz Pork Rib Scraps
1/2 lb brisket fat

2tbsp Mortons Kosher Salt
4tbsp Coarse Black Pepper
3/4 tsp Cure#1
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/2 tbsp Marjoram
1 tsp Sage

1 cup water


I season my meat and cover it and let it sit overnight. This gives the cure some time to work. The cure allows you to slow smoke the sausage if you choose, but it also makes the sausage taste better.


I grind the meat the next day using the large die on the Kitchen aid stand mixer attachement. This is meant to be a coarse sausage. The key to this is getting your meat very cold, but not quite frozen and put the parts of the attachment or grinder in the freezer to get them as cold as possible. This will help keep your fat from smearing.


Ground meat. After I grind the meat I hand mix the sausage with the water until it starts to get sticky. This caused by a protein in the pork and beef that binds the sausage together.


I use a 5lb dedicated LEM stuffer. I got tired of dealing with the kitchen aid one. You can get the casings from Amazon. I use Dewied hog casings. They come cased in salt. I soak them in water for about an hour and rinse them out with water a couple of times.


Stuffed casings. I have this little device that pokes small holes in the sausage. It helps get some air out of the casings.


I twist the sausages into small links and tie them off.

This batch I made for future cooks. I prefer to cook these at around 225 to 250 to an internal temperature of 160. You can go the slow smoking route but I find these come out great cooked at a higher temp on the smoker.

Products I used:

AWS-600 Scale https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000O37TDO/tvwb-20
Casings https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001RQOY94/tvwb-20
Sausage Pricker https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002L82SAO/tvwb-20
Sausage Stuffer https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01LWZ6AEI/tvwb-20
Meat Grinder Attachement https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SGFH/tvwb-20
 
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Here a past cook where I cooked this sausages alongside some brisket.


Cooked on the WSM with some Pecan. As easy as it gets. I cooked them while the brisket was resting.


Sliced with some Brisket.


Finished product. These sausages are very juicy. They have a lot of fat in them and aren't for the feint of heart but I love em!
 
Outstanding, Dustin!
It's been years since I've made sausage, fresh or summer.
My get up and go has got up and went.
 
Thanks for posting this, Dustin! I have a bunch of brisket fat vacuum packed in the freezer, so I will put it to good use with your recipe!

Rich
 
Outstanding, Dustin!
It's been years since I've made sausage, fresh or summer.
My get up and go has got up and went.

My get up and go has also left. I haven't made sausage since cardiac bypass surgery 8 years ago.
 
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I simplified my recipe slightly this last batch:


I took out the herbs and tweaked the cayenne and black pepper.

1.5% Salt
1.0% Black Pepper
0.25%Cure #1
0.075% Cayenne
10% Water.


Cubed up meat.


Seasoned meat cured overnight.


Grinding. After the grind I add the water and then hand mix until sticky.


Stuffing.


Cooking. I just cooked them at 230 after I had a brisket safely wrapped.


Sliced and served with brisket.
 
I was waiting for you to post your adjusted recipe, Dustin! :) Just to clarify, your percentages of cure/spice are as a percentage of the amount of meat, correct? So, 1000g of meat would get 15g of salt, 10g of pepper, etc?

I only ask because I have stumbled across a few recipes (notably in Kutas' "Great Sausage Recipes" book) that have all the ingredients listed as a % of the total mix (which I don't like since it's different than the way I do bread.) :)

Thanks for posting this up! I WILL make this during my next sausage session! :)

R
 
I simplified my recipe slightly this last batch:
1.5% Salt
1.0% Black Pepper
0.25%Cure #1
0.075% Cayenne
10% Water.

I'm having flashbacks to 8th grade story problems. A kilogram of cubed meat left Alphaville at 1:00 heading to Betaburgh; An unknown quantity of spices and water left Betaburgh heading Alphaville at 2:00pm.

Assuming the meat and the spices collide at 3:00pm, how much Salt, Black Pepper, Cure#1, Cayenne, and Water were involved in the collision? 🤔
 
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I was waiting for you to post your adjusted recipe, Dustin! :) Just to clarify, your percentages of cure/spice are as a percentage of the amount of meat, correct? So, 1000g of meat would get 15g of salt, 10g of pepper, etc?

I only ask because I have stumbled across a few recipes (notably in Kutas' "Great Sausage Recipes" book) that have all the ingredients listed as a % of the total mix (which I don't like since it's different than the way I do bread.) :)

Thanks for posting this up! I WILL make this during my next sausage session! :)

R
Yes. Percentages of meat and fat. Also if you like more salt you could bump it to 1.67% I wouldn't go much higher than that. I cook mine at 225 or so but the low heat approach works well on these as well. I've done that in the past and done the water bath, etc.
 
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I'm having flashbacks to 8th grade story problems. A kilogram of cubed meat left Alphaville at 1:00 heading to Betaburgh; An unknown quantity of spices and water left Betaburgh heading Alphaville at 2:00pm.

Assuming the meat and the spices collide at 3:00pm, how much Salt, Black Pepper, Cure#1, Cayenne, and Water were involved in the collision? 🤔
I did a version with tablespoons, teaspoons etc. I haven't adapted that for the new recipe. For a 5 lb batch it'd be something like 2 tbsp morton's kosher salt. 2 tbsp 16 mesh black pepper. I teaspoon of cure#5 and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne. Maybe a smidge more cayenne. Once you get the hang of the percentages in metric it's so much simpler and super easy to scale. In my few forays in to baking I've gone with weighing ingredients as well.
 

 

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