Been seeing all these pros making sausage on this forum and been reading up and accumulating the equipment to get started. I have the Marianski book "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages". Decided on a simple "Andouille" recipe:
Pork Butt: 1000g (2.2lbs)
Salt: 16g (23/4 tsp)
Cure #1: 2.5g (1/3 tsp)
Cracked Black Pepper: 6g (3 tsp)
Chopped garlic: 10g (3 cloves)
Dried Thyme: 2g (1 1/2 tsp)
Cayenne Pepper 4g (2 tsp)
Cold Water: 100g (3/8/ cup)
I used mostly pork butt but had bit of brisket I needed to use too. Ground using the coarse plate
Got this puppy for $60 at Academy
Friday night I did the grinding and mixing:
All mixed with seasonings and Cure:
Tested for saltiness and flavor. good to go.
Saturday I stuffed em up
After a night in the fridge here is my attempt at stuffing into these casings:
Now I know why everyone who does this gets a dedicated stuffer. Will get one this week. Stuffing was difficult using the stuffing attachment that came with the grinder: I had some blowouts and the stuffer tube as too big and tapered and just all wrong. But I managed to get most of it into the cases, albeit ugly.
I smoked em today (Sunday) on my Smokin-It #2 using AMNPS with a mix of Pitmasters Choice and a tad of Mesquite. I use a PID and programmed for:
130 for 1 hour
140 for 1 hour
150 for 1 hour
160 for 1 hour
170 until 160* IT
Fresh out of the smoker.
Showered them to cool em down and will refrigerate to bloom but I had to do some blooming in my mouth first.
These turned out very tasty and overall I am pleased. I had some AMNPS issues keeping it lit, which I haven't had until this weekend. I like my meat smokey so I will have to address the AMNPS issues. I suspect with all the rain we got here this week the pellets got a little moist.
I also will need to get more fat into it. The brisket portion I used was from a flat so I suspect this threw it a tad out of balance, but they were not dry.
One question though: I found the casing to be a bit tough and dry. Not sure if that is just the nature of this particular brand or if I need to do something different. I have some collagen I can try next time. Any thoughts?
Pork Butt: 1000g (2.2lbs)
Salt: 16g (23/4 tsp)
Cure #1: 2.5g (1/3 tsp)
Cracked Black Pepper: 6g (3 tsp)
Chopped garlic: 10g (3 cloves)
Dried Thyme: 2g (1 1/2 tsp)
Cayenne Pepper 4g (2 tsp)
Cold Water: 100g (3/8/ cup)
I used mostly pork butt but had bit of brisket I needed to use too. Ground using the coarse plate
Got this puppy for $60 at Academy
Friday night I did the grinding and mixing:
All mixed with seasonings and Cure:
Tested for saltiness and flavor. good to go.
Saturday I stuffed em up
After a night in the fridge here is my attempt at stuffing into these casings:
Now I know why everyone who does this gets a dedicated stuffer. Will get one this week. Stuffing was difficult using the stuffing attachment that came with the grinder: I had some blowouts and the stuffer tube as too big and tapered and just all wrong. But I managed to get most of it into the cases, albeit ugly.
I smoked em today (Sunday) on my Smokin-It #2 using AMNPS with a mix of Pitmasters Choice and a tad of Mesquite. I use a PID and programmed for:
130 for 1 hour
140 for 1 hour
150 for 1 hour
160 for 1 hour
170 until 160* IT
Fresh out of the smoker.
Showered them to cool em down and will refrigerate to bloom but I had to do some blooming in my mouth first.
These turned out very tasty and overall I am pleased. I had some AMNPS issues keeping it lit, which I haven't had until this weekend. I like my meat smokey so I will have to address the AMNPS issues. I suspect with all the rain we got here this week the pellets got a little moist.
I also will need to get more fat into it. The brisket portion I used was from a flat so I suspect this threw it a tad out of balance, but they were not dry.
One question though: I found the casing to be a bit tough and dry. Not sure if that is just the nature of this particular brand or if I need to do something different. I have some collagen I can try next time. Any thoughts?