After All These Years My First Fail...

[JckDanls 07]

I've never made any sausage and have to ask, what's "fat out'

It's a term used in the sausage field when the fat in the sausage renders down and melts and turns into a liquid form.... Usually happens when your cooking temps are to high...

I'm going to calibrate (boiling water) my PID controller and probe, But i'm pretty confident that's in order as it was reading correct ambeint temp... I even backed my max temp down to 170 from 175 for the second batch...

 

[Fueling Around]

One time I had a butt in the freezer for over a year, my SS did the same thing. Maybe too long in the freezer does something to the pork?

...
My thoughts are either the pork itself ,
or the one difference from past batches , is the new stuffer .
Just something to consider I think .

I think both of you are on the same page.
I try not to leave meat in the freezer too long.

 

[indaswamp]

I have not read all the comments yet, but if it has not been mentioned, there is such a thing as having the meat too cold and it will cause fat out. Meat freezes at around 27*F, so the closer you get to that temp., the more of a chance you have of shaving the fat and meat. and if you shave the fat, it will fat out on you. 30-32*F is optimal IMO...

Also with larger batches, it is best to mix the meat every 20 minutes or so when you are chilling it in the freezer. The meat near the edge of the container will get colder than the meat in the center. Mixing will equalize and chill the block faster as warm chunks come into contact with almost frozen chunks.....

hope this helps...

 

[indaswamp]

I even backed my max temp down to 170 from 175 for the second batch...

Yes. 175*F for longer than about 20-25 minutes is risking fat out IMO. I personally never go over 165*F, and target 136*F INT then start a timer for 1.5 hours to pasteurize. Final temp. might be 140-148*F depending on batch size, but either way, the smoke sausage is done having achieved a LOG9 reduction in pathogens. (That's a 1 with 9 zeros behind it....reduction of bacteria).

 

[Newglide]

It's a term used in the sausage field when the fat in the sausage renders down and melts and turns into a liquid form

Thanks, That sucks,

 

[Evil_Tessmacher]

I just had the same thing happen, but here is what I believe is the cause.

The casings I used this time were larger than I usually use (19mm vs 16mm) the electric stuffer runs pretty fast compared to hand crank. While stuffing I noticed I wasn’t getting stuffed as tight as needed, so I gently squeezed my hand around the tube to get them more tight, the meat was flowing back up the outside of tube to my hand and casings looked tighter but still not where I thought they should be.

I continued stuffing to the end and noticed the casings were not really actually tight at all, they were full but not tight. I think this is a function of the speed of the mince coming out of the horn (speed dial set just to about the first mark).

I went to the smoker with same process as I’ve always used. And about the 4 hour mark I noticed they didn’t look “right” but nothing to do but finish IT at that point. The whole batch was “fat out” I cooled them, casings were shoe leather and there was zero bind of meat to casing. I stripped the casing cleaned them up. Texture was to soft. So I went to the dehydrator at 150 and dried them a bit. They are fine but not my best work for sure.

Long story short, I believe the cause was not being stuffed tight enough and that creates no bind to the casing. Juices flow around inside a hot smoked sausage during cooking. This is what can cause the “stall” effect. The meat must bind to the casing in the lower temp phase, if not the juices will flow between the casing and meat. This creates the effect of “fat out”.

Pardon me for jumping in here, since I'm still a total N00b when it comes to sausage making, but it just might be necessary to go back to the hand stuffer to make sure that you're getting the "tight" that you want. I know that's not what you wanted to consider as an option, else you wouldn't have gotten an electric stuffer.
Then again, all I have is a Hakka 7l manual stuffer, and so I honestly don't know anything else. Part of me likes the manual effort that goes into it, and makes me feel better that I said "I made this", rather than having mechanical things doing it for me.