Some months ago Joe sent me some of his special Kielbasa seasoning to try, I finally "made" the time to try it last weekend. I made 5# following his directions but used fresh Jals rather than canned and we don't have Hi-temp cheese so I used a variety of Swiss cheese called Madrigal. Last December my wife's aunt came back from visiting her daughter and grand kids in Costa Mesa CA and brought me some Fermento so I also made 10# of Big Guys Summer Sausage and 5# of Smokin Al's Spicy Pepperoni.
I was up Saturday morning at the crack of dawn and did a fry test which caused me to want to fry up some more for breakfast, they all tasted so good, then I began stuffing 20# of sausage in the hog casings my friend Gary had sent me, first time for me using natural casings, but things went well, no big problems. It was 9:30 before I set the PID on my "electric" GOSM and dried them for 2 hours at 120°, next I bumped the temp to 140° and applied Pecan smoke for 4 hours with my new homemade smoke generator, after that I set the temp for 175° around 7:30 some were 152°, so I started removing the sausage from the smoker, by 8:45 all were at temp, all had been cooled in cold ice water and here is a pic of them blooming.
Like I said this was my first time using natural casing so they aren't that pretty, I had some air pockets in the ends that filled with water, I started stuffing the Summer Sausage first and by the time I got to the Pepperoni and Kielbasa I was doing a lot better.
This pic shows the three different sausages better, the mahogany colored in the back are the Summer Sausage, the red ones in front are the Spicy Pepperoni and the brown ones on the left are the Kielbasa.
This is my almost Midnight snack, Joe's Jalapena & Cheese Kielbasa, I didn't use Joe's recommend amount of Jals in consideration of Mrs. JPT, next time I'll make some without for her and some with for me, the Jals were just enough to tease, and look at my "fresh" cheese, it didn't melt, it remained in the small cubes I had cut. The cheese on the side is some cherry smoked Gouda from my first smoke with my smoke generator, it sure is good, I have purposely not devoured much of what I smoked as I'm saving it for the Summer Sausage and Pepperoni after they spend some time in the fridge drying.
Joe my friend, thank you so much for allowing me to test/taste your seasoning, ...it is as good as everyone has said!
Thanks everyone for looking at my Q-view,
Gene
I was up Saturday morning at the crack of dawn and did a fry test which caused me to want to fry up some more for breakfast, they all tasted so good, then I began stuffing 20# of sausage in the hog casings my friend Gary had sent me, first time for me using natural casings, but things went well, no big problems. It was 9:30 before I set the PID on my "electric" GOSM and dried them for 2 hours at 120°, next I bumped the temp to 140° and applied Pecan smoke for 4 hours with my new homemade smoke generator, after that I set the temp for 175° around 7:30 some were 152°, so I started removing the sausage from the smoker, by 8:45 all were at temp, all had been cooled in cold ice water and here is a pic of them blooming.
Like I said this was my first time using natural casing so they aren't that pretty, I had some air pockets in the ends that filled with water, I started stuffing the Summer Sausage first and by the time I got to the Pepperoni and Kielbasa I was doing a lot better.
This pic shows the three different sausages better, the mahogany colored in the back are the Summer Sausage, the red ones in front are the Spicy Pepperoni and the brown ones on the left are the Kielbasa.
This is my almost Midnight snack, Joe's Jalapena & Cheese Kielbasa, I didn't use Joe's recommend amount of Jals in consideration of Mrs. JPT, next time I'll make some without for her and some with for me, the Jals were just enough to tease, and look at my "fresh" cheese, it didn't melt, it remained in the small cubes I had cut. The cheese on the side is some cherry smoked Gouda from my first smoke with my smoke generator, it sure is good, I have purposely not devoured much of what I smoked as I'm saving it for the Summer Sausage and Pepperoni after they spend some time in the fridge drying.
Joe my friend, thank you so much for allowing me to test/taste your seasoning, ...it is as good as everyone has said!
Thanks everyone for looking at my Q-view,
Gene
