Fattie Question

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lexscsmoker

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Feb 25, 2009
87
53
Lexington, SC
How many pounds of sausage do y'all use? I plan on making 2 this wkend. The ones that DudeAbides made, Breakfast and Pizza, looked great and I want to do those. I didn't want to make it then not have enough sausage. Thanks.
 
Standard is usually a one pound chub of sausage. People have done bigger, smaller (mini ones on buns) but standard is your one pounder stuffed with whatever, or not stuffed at all. All up to the smoke master at the time.
You can always go bigger than one pound, but if you did a few one pounders you can always experiment with several fillings.
Hope to see some pics of whatever you decide to make.
The Dude will be along at some point to give you some advice on the ones he did, long as Walter will give him a lift.
 
I found that when I use a gallon ziplock that a tad over a pound of sausage works great. Actually a pound works fine but I like to add a pinch. I tell you something else I do that makes it a little easier for me. I use a pair of scissors and cut a tiny slit in each corner to let the air out while I roll the sausage out in the ziplock with a rolling pin. Works great. Then I put the ziplock flat in the fridge for about 10 minutes and then I use the siccors and cut down the edges of the ziplock to open the bag up and put my filling in.
 
the standard old school fatty is made with a 1 pound sausage chub.

the 2nd generation gourmet fatties if you use the baggy method, i suggest about 1.25 lbs. will give you a good thickness to suround the goodies inside.

for expierimentation i like making mini fatties, about half sized. helps cut cost, they will smoke up a bit quicker to temp inside. also have seen them up to 4 pounds or so. ck the fatty forum for ideas.
 
I always use two pounds. I can make it a little thicker so they don't blowout. I've been known to use a whole pound of bacon to wrap one up. Never had to throw any out yet.
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Congrats on getting ready to make your first fatty.
As you can see there really aren't any hard and fast rules on these. And there are certainly more experienced fatty makers than I. But I much appreciate your kind words on the pizza and breakfast fattys I did.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=74952
And even those are just variations on other things I've read here. Two things I try to consider for ingredients; 1) What do I like to eat? and 2) What sounds like it would be good to eat with a mouthful of sausage?
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But that really wasn't your question was it?
Everything I've done so far has been from one pound chubs/packages. That's because they sell them that way. So for me it's been a convienence factor. But this weekend I'm going to do one that is made with hot Italian sausage. I bought that from the case and asked for 1.5 pounds.

I too use the 1 gallon zip lock bags. I put the sausage to the bottom of the bag. I leave it open on top to let out the air and just roll it out evenly to the top of the bag. And then, has been said, I throw it into the freezer (leave it laying flat) for 20-30 minutes. It's easier to work with that way. Then I use a sharp knife to slit down the sides of the bag (do not cut the bottom of the bag) to lay it open as if it were one long piece of plastic.

From there add your ingredients. There are two methods I've done for this; 1) Layout your ingredients in a "pile" in the middle and wrap your sausage around that. or 2) Lay the ingredients out evenly acoss the entire sheet of sausage/meat. This way when you roll it, the meat and ingredients sort of layer around each other. So when you slice the fatty you'll get a nice looking "pinwheel" effect. Certain ingredients (see FireItUp's banana fatty) obviously won't let you do that since it won't lay out. But I think this is mostly a presentation thing. However in some cases a certain ingredient may benefit from having touch contact with the sausage/meat.

As you roll, go slow. Watch for tears/blowouts in the meat. If/when this happens I just tear a little piece from the end or side and patch the hole. Lift the bag as you roll and let it do a lot of the work to keep the roll even. It will be sticky, so take your time. When the rolling has reached the end, pinch the ends to keep the ingredients from leaking out and press together the seam where the end of the roll meets the body. (Does that make any sense?)

Then wrap in bacon if you want. I do because I like bacon and I think it helps hold everything together. That's up to you. But whether you do a weave (as seen in grothe's post)
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=69819
or a wrap (as seen in Capt Dan's post)
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=68353
just make sure the bacon overlaps itself. Also make sure that overlapped area of the bacon is the side that you put down on the grate. This way as the bacon cooks and shrinks it doesn't pull apart and not do part of it's job of pulling the fatty tighter together.

I highly recommend transferring the fatty at this point to a sheet of Saran Wrap to tighten up the fatty. It's been described as looking like a Tootsie Roll wrapper. Again see that post above from Capt Dan, that's the page I used the most as a tutorial when I did my first. Thanks Capt Dan!

More than you wanted, I know. I just figured I'd get it all out. Feel free to private message me if you have any other questions. But you can see there's lots of fatty chefs around here and many different variations of them.

I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to post some pictures. As they say around here...no pictures, never happened. Not to mention we all like to drool on our keyboards.


FireItUp..who's Walter?
 
Sorry Dude, I thought you would pick up on that. Remember Walter, from The Big Lebowski?




But Walter couldn't drive because it was shomer shabbos.
 
I've made 1 pounders, which are the standard fatties. But you can't put much into them- they'll tend to have a blowout or be more difficult to roll.

The ones I really like to stuff- I use 1.5 pounds sausage. I mix one pounder chub with a half pound of fresh sausage in a gallon ziploc as others have recommended (that's where I learned from). Here's a pic just at the start of adding the goodies. You can see it makes a decently thick meat square that won't blow out:



You can follow the rest of My German Fattie at http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=75330

Good luck to you and good smokin'!
 
I agree with 1.5lbs in a gallon bag. I usually make 2 fatties so 3 of the 1lb chubs works out perfect.
 
Darn it FiU how in the heck did I miss that reference.

See LexSC...it all a matter of preference. But I agree the thicker your sausage/meat the easier it will be to roll. Just remember the thicker your meat the longer the smoke. But with these it's pretty quick...relatively speaking of course. It's not like a brisket.
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