- Apr 6, 2017
- 20
- 49
Hey there fellow pitmasters!
Greetings from London UK!
I am a cold cuts fanatic and love bologna, especially paired with some pickles, cheese and beer!
A few weeks back, I thought why not make some myself?! So I did my research, got me some pork shoulder + pork belly cuts, asked the butcher to mince it for me, mixed it with some spices, smoked it on beech wood for about 3 hours and it came out looking like this:
I was so impressed and so happy with how it came out! I put olives in it as you can see. (I don't use curing salts in my bologna hence the lack of that typical bologna "pink" color. I use celery seeds)
So, fast forward to today, I decided to use the leftover minced meat from the above bologna which I saved in the freezer for another! Well, it EPICLY FAILED and came out looking completely wrinkled up and it shrank! Because of this, there wasn't that classic "red" skin beneath the casing when unwrapped (the meat all stuck to the casing), and it didn't have a good shape at all. I smoked it for almost 4 hours - perhaps too much? I kept it on the far end of the grill though.
The only difference I made this time to the meat mixture is that:
Can somebody help me answer why this happened?
Just to note:
Greetings from London UK!
I am a cold cuts fanatic and love bologna, especially paired with some pickles, cheese and beer!
A few weeks back, I thought why not make some myself?! So I did my research, got me some pork shoulder + pork belly cuts, asked the butcher to mince it for me, mixed it with some spices, smoked it on beech wood for about 3 hours and it came out looking like this:
I was so impressed and so happy with how it came out! I put olives in it as you can see. (I don't use curing salts in my bologna hence the lack of that typical bologna "pink" color. I use celery seeds)
So, fast forward to today, I decided to use the leftover minced meat from the above bologna which I saved in the freezer for another! Well, it EPICLY FAILED and came out looking completely wrinkled up and it shrank! Because of this, there wasn't that classic "red" skin beneath the casing when unwrapped (the meat all stuck to the casing), and it didn't have a good shape at all. I smoked it for almost 4 hours - perhaps too much? I kept it on the far end of the grill though.
The only difference I made this time to the meat mixture is that:
- I added American Yellow Mustard instead of powdered mustard
- I didn't blend the minced meat with a blender, I kneaded it by hand for ages until it became a similar consistency.
Can somebody help me answer why this happened?
Just to note:
- I am using a drum BBQ, not a proper smoker. I keep the coals + wood on one side, and meat on the other. Hoping to upgrade when I can.
- I do not monitor internal temperature of the grill. I just load about the same size batch of coal every hour.
Last edited:
