Chud's Beef Sausage

[Dustin Dorsey]

I'm a big fan of Chud's BBQ youtube page. Chud is Bradley Robinson who works for Leroy and Lewis in Austin, TX. A Texas Monthly article with Evan Leroy is were I first started piecing together how to make my approximation of Texas Hot Guts. So when Bradley Robinson put out a beef sausage video I was dying to try it.

He has a recipe in the description box. I made a few changes, basically cutting the Tumeric because I didn't have any and WAY dialed down the cayenne, I guess because I'm weak.

Here's my worksheet. I changed the recipe to percentages, added cure#1 and dialed back the salt to compensate..

This my meat with the spices added. I let the meat cure over night.

Ground meat in the stuffer.

Casing loaded up.

Casings filled.

links made. I had to get creative with some butcher's twine due to a last minute blowout.

Smoked in the WSM at about 150 for 4 hours and then bumped up until internal of 153. This was my snake setup.

Smoked sausages.

Sliced.

These turned out delicious although I feel like the casings might be a little tough. The sausages very juicy with excellent smoke and flavor. Thanks for looking!

 

[JimK]

Looks great!

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

Those look Great!

 

[JeffG]

Wow.. that looks tasty Dustin.

 

[Rich G]

I always zero in on your sausage posts, @Dustin Dorsey !! These look fantastic, and I'm kicking myself because I STILL haven't made your Hot Guts!!! Since I'm stealing this, I want to make sure that your percentages are of the meat weight, not of the total batch weight.....do I have that right? That's how I do it (baker's math), but I see a lot of sausage recipes that use percentages of overall mix instead. Also, any deets on what kind of beef you used, and which grinding plate? Your sliced sausage looks like you used a finer die to finish, but maybe you just mix better than I do!

I probably won't make any sausage until December, since I just put up 15 lbs (kielbasa, chorizo, summer), but this one's on top of the pile for sure!

Oh, and I've seen a couple videos by that guy before......he certainly seems to enjoy life (and being the life of the party, I'll bet!)

R

 

[Rich G]

Ok, never mind, I stopped being lazy and pulled out a calculator.....so, yeah, % of the meat weight for the spices, liquid, etc. Perfect! New entry in my recipe file looks like this:



Thanks, Dustin!

R

 

[Ken Barth]

Looks delicious and great description!

 

[Ron De Hoogh]

That looks delicious, you can see how juicy they are!

 

[Cliff Bartlett]

Hey Dustin...... good seeing you in action. The sausages look great. Thanks for sharing that video. That guy is an absolute hoot!

 

[Peter Gallagher]

yeah, those are a real labor of love - they look really good!

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

I always zero in on your sausage posts, @Dustin Dorsey !! These look fantastic, and I'm kicking myself because I STILL haven't made your Hot Guts!!! Since I'm stealing this, I want to make sure that your percentages are of the meat weight, not of the total batch weight.....do I have that right? That's how I do it (baker's math), but I see a lot of sausage recipes that use percentages of overall mix instead. Also, any deets on what kind of beef you used, and which grinding plate? Your sliced sausage looks like you used a finer die to finish, but maybe you just mix better than I do!

I probably won't make any sausage until December, since I just put up 15 lbs (kielbasa, chorizo, summer), but this one's on top of the pile for sure!

Oh, and I've seen a couple videos by that guy before......he certainly seems to enjoy life (and being the life of the party, I'll bet!)

R

Rich, this was the first time I've used non-fat dry milk powder as a binder. I just used the coarse die on the kitchen-aid attachment (for my 5 pound batches this works fine for me) and I didn't run it back through (Although I think Chud does). I think the milk powder is how I got that bind, although I did mix the sausage pretty thoroughly by hand, but no more thoroughly than I normally do. The beef was just left over stuff in my freezer. There was a chuck roast, a hunk of something I trimmed off a rib roast and believe it or not a chunk of skirt steak that was too small to do anything with. Then I used brisket fat to give me something like a 70/30 mix. Since the skirt steak was lean, I used a little more than normal maybe 9 oz or so. Oh and I left out a crucial detail. That's low sodium beef stock.

Also, you are correct the percentages are of the beef+fat.

 

[Rich G]

Thanks for the details, Dustin. I really need to get in the habit of saving my brisket fat! I've used milk powder before, and it does bind things pretty well. I usually will do a pass with the small die, as I just prefer that texture.

Thanks,
R

 

[CaseT]

Looks tasty! Baby snakes cooked by a snake!

 

[Rich Dahl]

Those look great Dustin. I've always wanted to try making sausage but just never get to it.

 

[Brad Olson]

Looks great, Dustin! I like that you only made 1 pass through the grinder, too, as I don't like sausage that's too homogenized.

 

[Steve Madden]

WOW! Nice work and those look delicious!

 

[Mark Foreman]

How long did you soak the casings for? I usually do the overnight. You may not be soaking them long enough.

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

How long did you soak the casings for? I usually do the overnight. You may not be soaking them long enough.

I only soaked them for a few hours, so you may be right. I don't have this happen when I cook them at 225 though. It only seems to happen with that warm smoke method. I've heard though that you need to warm smoke to get the casing right. I had a link today that I reheated though, and the casing was fine, so who knows. Maybe I understuffed slightly.

-Now that I think about it, the sausage I sampled was the messed up sacrificial one I used for the probe. It's possible that's why the casing was weird.