Too Much Fat in Polish?

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oberst

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Jan 8, 2015
254
163
St Louis
Just did a batch of semi-dried Polish out of Kutak (p 373) and based on the last batch, I decided to up the fat.  Now I wonder if I went overboard.  Out of a 10 pound batch, I included 1 pound of diced fatback and also 4 pounds of pork butt, with the other 5 pounds very lean venison.  Here's what the stuffed sausages look like; you can see the fat back cubes easily:


Here's what the raw mix looked like:


Here we are after 4 hours in the smoker, with another 12 hours cold smoke slated, to be followed by several days of drying.  These look pretty good, but the fat content is nagging me a bit.  


Lots of commercial sausages are as much as 80% fat; this batch will be close to 45-50.  (Although pork butt isn't all fat by any means so I'm not sure if I'm calculating the % correctly.)  Based on experience, what do you think?

Thanks!!
 
From your numbers it's probably around 20-25% fat.....    1#+ in the butt....  1# of the fat back....   none from the venison....
 
To finish this thread I conclude that I didn't have too much fat in this Polish.  This is the first time I chopped up fat and added it at the end, so it didn't get ground into the mixture as much.  Some recipes call for it that way I know.  In the mix I used fat back and diced it up, separate from the pork I ground.  Dave figured I had about 25% fat in total, which certainly isn't too high.  Dicing makes the fat more obvious though, which I kind of like in this case.  Next time I would try cold smoking the fat back first, maybe in strips, then dicing to give it a smoky appearance and taste.  Maybe like a couple hours in the smoker, probably using hickory.  Anyone else have some observations on this technique that would be great.  I say, one of my favorite aspects of this semi-dry Polish is leaving it on the counter.  It seems to get better as it sits there over a couple days.  Never lasts longer!

 
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Looks great. Stuffed really tight uniform look.
[emoji]128077[/emoji][emoji]128077[/emoji][emoji]128175[/emoji]
 
You bet:  This is a recipe from the Rytek Kutas "Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing p373.  Its a 1999 version so if there is a more current one the page may not be the same.  It's called semi dry Polish Mountain Sausage calling for lamb, bacon and fat pork meat but I used venison, pork butt and fat back.   Out of a 10 pound batch I used one pound of fatback that I diced up, froze, and then incorporated into the mix at the end, to keep the fat in chunks.  These Polish sausage recipes always seem to feature pepper and garlic, and I always up whatever is called for; this recipe called for 3T of black pepper and I added 5.  Wasn't too peppery.

This sausage gets smoked, and cooked to 150 degrees,, then cold smoked a second time, and the semi-dry part comes in when you let the sausage dry for a few days, at 50-60 degrees ( I used a basement room with the window cracked and ran a humidifier (got at Goodwill for $6) during some of that time to keep the humidity up.  It says to let the suusage shrink at least 15%, but I ended up freezing mine after 24% shrinkage.

I like this semi-dried sausage as I can leave a stick on the counter  till its gone, and it seems to taste better after being at room temp for some time.

I'm planning to make another batch, as it's pretty easy, but this time will cold smoke fat back strips first, and then dice them into the mix.  Also, I put some whole peppercorns in the last batch, and like the pepper blast from biting into them!  So this time I'll add some more and see how that goes.  
 
Sausage looks good....   I find that I can add more black pepper and more garlic to most any recipe, and it still comes out good....  I guess we are on the same page when it comes to taste...   
 
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