Jalapeno Cheese Beef Sausage


 
Dustin Dorsey

Dustin Dorsey

TVWBB Hall of Fame
I made and cooked some Jalapeno and cheese beef sausage recently.

Iq3Vm9Bl.jpg

All of my spice mixture ingredients.

qVcfIJcl.jpg

Mixture of brisket fat, brisket trim and chuck roast.

c5yUvtQl.jpg

Ground and mixed.

YulbwjVl.jpg

Getting stuffed.

zcoowIpl.jpg

Just cooked them up on the kettle with weber charcoal and a big chunk of post oak.


Another shot cooking.


Final product. Here's a little tip. People think a probe will ruin the sausage because all the juice leaks out. I wait until the sausage cools down to slicing temp to remove the probe and the juice doesn't run out on me.

Cb1QcpFl.jpg

Turned out great. I bumped up the cheese this time and I probably needed just a touch more salt to compensate, but just barely. I can't believe how juicy these turned out.
 
Looks really juicy! I have never used all beef as opposed to a combo of pork & a little beef. I may have to try all beef next time around!
 
I always love your sausage posts, Dustin! Those look awesome! Still using regular cheese, it looks like? I've tried the hi-temp stuff, and it does what it says, but have decided to stick with the "regular" cheese. What's your % of cheese and of jalapeno to your meat/fat mass??

I need to get the sausage gear out when I can actually lift stuff that heavy again! :)

R
 
This was actually high temp cheese but I cooked it at high temp (250) which is maybe why it got a little melty. I didn't measure out the jalapeno's exactly, I just did 6 deseeded jalapenos for roughly 5 pounds of meat/fat ( I know I need to measure it next time. Shame on me). The cheese was slightly less than 15%. I did closer to 10% last time. I felt like the cheese was too low last time. I thought the cheese would have enough salt to compensate, but I think I need to tweak my salt up just a hair. My taste buds might be have been off. My salt was about 1.67%, and then the salt in my cure #1 which is .25%. Other guys use something like 2% salt. I started out using around 1.5. I just don't like my sausage over salty.
 
Dustin Dorsey said:
This was actually high temp cheese but I cooked it at high temp (250) which is maybe why it got a little melty. I didn't measure out the jalapeno's exactly, I just did 6 deseeded jalapenos for roughly 5 pounds of meat/fat ( I know I need to measure it next time. Shame on me). The cheese was slightly less than 15%. I did closer to 10% last time. I felt like the cheese was too low last time. I thought the cheese would have enough salt to compensate, but I think I need to tweak my salt up just a hair. My taste buds might be have been off. My salt was about 1.67%, and then the salt in my cure #1 which is .25%. Other guys use something like 2% salt. I started out using around 1.5. I just don't like my sausage over salty.
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Thanks! My last batch was four jalapeños for 2270g, and 10% cheese. 1.8% salt and no cure. Was pretty close to what I wanted, just needed a bit more jalapeno and a bit more cheese, so probably about your ratios.
 
Dustin, that is outstanding. Thank you. Looks so, so good.

I'm an experienced cook and really curious about the entire sausage-making process. A bit intimidating to jump down that rabbit hole for fear of failure. My better half is basically at her limit for kitchen tools.

How'd you all learn the process, and how steep is this learning curve??
 
Tim Campbell said:
Dustin, that is outstanding. Thank you. Looks so, so good.

I'm an experienced cook and really curious about the entire sausage-making process. A bit intimidating to jump down that rabbit hole for fear of failure. My better half is basically at her limit for kitchen tools.

How'd you all learn the process, and how steep is this learning curve??
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My take? Start with bulk, uncased sausage. Assuming you have a way to grind some meat, all you need is ingredients, and hands to mix. It's also a good way to dial in some small batch recipes before you even get into the stuffing side of things. Bulk sausage is great for all sorts of recipes, or, my favorite, just making up breakfast sausage for patties. If you start small, you can even get a hand crank grinder and see if it's for you before you invest in a grinder and stuffer. A food processor works, too, if you pay attention to not heating up your mince (hint, add ice cubes for your water to keep it cool/cold while processing.

Many of us have recipes to share if you want to dive in. :)
 
Thank you, Rich. This is helpful.

I do have a grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid that works well for family burger night and other good stuff.

Do you order the casings on-line? Through a butcher? Thanks again.
 
I've gotten casings through both sources. Usually, if you have a local shop that makes their own sausage, they'll be happy to sell you some casings. My current favorite source is Syracuse Casing Company (makingcasing.com). Good prices, fast shipping, and I like their "tubed" casings as they are really easy to get on a stuffing horn. General rule of thumb for 32-35mm casings (standard size for brats and such) is 2 feet per pound of mince.

Your KA grinder attachment will work out great to start with, I started with the same. At some point, if you feel you want more speed to do larger batches, then you could look into a dedicated grinder. Most people who have tried it will tell you that trying to stuff casings with that attachment is an exercise in frustration (you need like six hands to make it anything close to workable), but that's true of all stuffing attachments on any grinder. I can't highly recommend a dedicated stuffer enough.......I'd recommend you get that before you get a dedicated grinder. 5lb models can be had somewhat modestly (or cheaply if you get lucky on CL or FBMP, etc.)

Feel free to ask questions! There is a learning curve, but I bet there's a few of us who could help shorten it! :)

R
 
Rich - I will say it a bit more bluntly regarding trying to stuff casings via the KA grinder, it is an "exercise in futility."

LEM casings work very well once you learn how to use them, meaning soaking, stretching etc. they can found all over the web & in your local stores such as Bass Pro/Cabelas, Academy Sports, Amazon etc.
 
Dustin Dorsey said:
I made and cooked some Jalapeno and cheese beef sausage recently.

Iq3Vm9Bl.jpg

All of my spice mixture ingredients.

qVcfIJcl.jpg

Mixture of brisket fat, brisket trim and chuck roast.

c5yUvtQl.jpg

Ground and mixed.

YulbwjVl.jpg

Getting stuffed.

zcoowIpl.jpg

Just cooked them up on the kettle with weber charcoal and a big chunk of post oak.


Another shot cooking.


Final product. Here's a little tip. People think a probe will ruin the sausage because all the juice leaks out. I wait until the sausage cools down to slicing temp to remove the probe and the juice doesn't run out on me.

Cb1QcpFl.jpg

Turned out great. I bumped up the cheese this time and I probably needed just a touch more salt to compensate, but just barely. I can't believe how juicy these turned out.
Click to expand...
Wow Dustin - that's a great looking sausage! Someday I'm going to make my own but that's probably a ways out. I love good hot links when I can find them.
 
I'm still using the kitchen aid grinder attachment to grind meat but early on we also stuffed using it. It's not fun, but it's doable with two people. You'll quickly want a dedicated stuffer.

Sausage is something I just had to dive into. It's not much different than taking that terrifying step in making your own barbecue. You need some equipment. One thing that might scare people off is a lot of us use metric weight measurement and percentages to write our sausage formulas. Not all do. There are tons of recipes out there using standard U.S. volume measurements. It's just in my opinion far easier and more accurate to scale up and down for any amount of meat you have using metric and percentages. I use two scales. One is just a cheap kitchen scale to measure the weight of the meat and fat, liquids, and what not. The other is probably an even cheaper jeweler's type scale I got on Amazon to measure the seasonings. This is because you need something that can really measure grams accurately.
 
Dustin Dorsey said:
The other is probably an even cheaper jeweler's type scale I got on Amazon to measure the seasonings. This is because you need something that can really measure grams accurately.
Click to expand...
You and I have the same taste in scales.....I just used my little AWS to measure my 23g of coffee! :)
 
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