Recipes - guide to quantities of spices?

here is a sausage site that uses that kind of cure, along with recipes, etc.  I should note that it is 12.5% nitrite in salt vs. the cures here which are 6.25%, twice the concentration.

http://sausagecraft.info/sausage/articles/hot-smoking.html

and everything is in metric, also.

Your link only provided the price of the cure.  I was looking for the amounts of Sodium Nitrite and Sodium Nitrate in it so I could offer some reasonable advice.

Have you ever made sausage before, from the tools you have I have to think that you are an old hand at making smoked sausage.  I ask because I would always recommend that the first sausages you make be either a fresh sausage or a hot smoke sausage,  They are a lot easier and there is less chance of them spoiling.

If the cure mix you are using has directions use them first.  Fresh vegetables can normally be ground right along with your meat, just remember that they have a lot more moisture then dried vegetables so keep an eye on that.

As far a spice combinations and amounts of spices I would suggest following some basic recipes at first and then adapting them to your individual tastes.  I know the Marianski book   "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages" has several pages dedicated to spice combinations and amounts.

Good Luck, I am going to try to find your cure with Goggle so I might be able to help with the cure amounts.

Al

Yea, that stuff has twice as much Sodium Nitrite as found in Cure1 so if you are using cure1 recipes use 1/2 the recommended amount of cure.  We normally add additional salt when using cure 1 in most sausage recipes.so you should be adding additional salt when using your cure. 

You are asking us if you should add salt?   We normally add salt to our sausages, bacon brines and dry cures when using Cure1.  The cure you are using when mixed to the proper concentration for curing will have considerably less salt then Cure 1 mixes.   You are using or should be using 1/2 the recommended amounts of Cure 1 in recipes because your have twice as much sodium nitrite in your cure.      I would look at some of the recipes on the forum and see how much salt they are adding for what you want to do.   Remember for every 100 grams of cure 1 we have 6.25 grams Sodium Nitrite and 93.75 grams salt   to get 6.25 grams of sodium nitrite with your cure you will only have 46.88 grams of salt originating from the cure.  So I would thing the amounts of additional salt recommended in the recipes are going to be on the low end.

I can't tell you how much salt to add but the recipes can give you at least a place to start.

I am working on a recipe for a 60 degree SAL brine for a bacon curing demo.  The recipe calls for 1.568 lbs of salt per gallon ( 15.8 % by weight) and 81 grams of cure 1.  That's close to 2.6 cups of salt per gallon of water.   Checking other recipes the amount of salt added to the brine varies from 1/2 cup to 4 cups.    Just goes to show that there is not any one hard and fast rule about how much salt to add.  When doing brines you at least have the opportunity to taste test and soak some the extra salt out if need.      When doing dry cured bacon I use either a 3% or 4% total salt concentration, including the salt from the cure recipe.  You can do something similar for your sausages, look at recipes, find out what concentration of salt they are using when all ingredients are combined and then use that concentration when designing your recipes.                        

Hope this helps and isn't just confusing

This is an interesting read that includes some basic proportions of salt/spice to meat ratios.

http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-recipes/secrets

i have done it thru an electric grinder but not thru a hand crank. Diced them w/ a knife then ground w/ the meat in the grinder. It worked fine.

  Only thing that you need to make sure and dice to size w/ a knife is green onions . They tend to want to wrap around the auger of the grinder if left to long.

gasbag said:

I really appreciate all the advice, well and truly.
But one specific question I want to ask - has anyone personally tried mixing very finely chopped herbs/spices/vegetables, then mixing them with the meat through a hand-cranked mincer?  Yes/No?

Click to expand...

Here's some links to check out were people used fresh herbs, veg,etc

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/110625/spinach-artichoke-chicken-sausage

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/104152/sun-dried-tomato-chicken-sausage-now-with-q-view