MORE Kielbasa and stuff...

Here's a follow-up after several days of trying the stuff I made last weekend:

The Kielbasa: Over I'm very pleased wit the way these came out. Nice, pleasant flavor, but not as garlicky as my previous batches. In all my other kielbasa, I used fresh or freshly-cooked garlic; this recipe called for garlic powder. I think I'll stick with the fresh stuff from now on. My wife does like the mustard seeds called for in this recipe; I'll keep adding those to future batches. 

These links were smoked a long time (4+hours) with heavy smoke at times. In the future, if I do long smokes I'll use a 'milder' wood in place of hickory. Maybe oak or cherry/apple combo. The hickory gives the final product a vibrantly rich red mahogany color to the sausage, but also has a very prominent 'smokey' flavor profile.

Hickory wood adds a great color, but also a very strong flavor...



Re: My Canadian Bacon

After letting it rest for a few days, i began slicing & sampling the bacon. Much to my dismay, I found it to be overly SALTY with just a hint of sweetness. In hindsight (20/20 of course), I should have soaked the load in batches of fresh water more thoroughly and for an extended period following the brining process. What I did was flush them once & rinse them well—obviously not enough to counter the saltiness present.

So what to do with over 14lbs of smoked 'salt pork'? When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. With smoked salt pork, you make BEANS! Or split pea soup. Or cooked greens with bacon. Plenty of uses. Heck, you CAN eat this fried for breakfast or on a muffin, but you definitely need to sweeten it up with syrup to offset the salty bite. Baked beans with this bacon would be great. So all is not lost. 

Chalk it up to experience. Nice time I'll know better.

Kevin

Beautiful bacon...no additional salt needed! ;)