I put this recipe together after a good bit of research. First, I read every post here and on Meatgistics that came up with “hotdog”, “frankfurter”, or “weiner”, looking for recipes and notes on recipes. Actual info was very sparse, almost everything pointed towards Marianski recipes.
I made a chart with spices etc for Marianski’s recipes for weiner, frankfurter, hotdog, and coney Island hotdog. I also added TX beef sausages, Czech TX sausage, TX hot links. I also compared all these to bologna.
The recipes are almost identical, but Vienna sausage “weiner” had the coriander and mace I like, I added the garlic from US hotdogs, and then several thought celery seed powder was a critical flavor, so I added that. However, having all the recipes lined up let me be sure I was using correct amounts for the right flavor profile.
I bought and tasted the following, and analyzed their nutrition labels for listed spices, salt, etc:
Oscar Meyer regular
OM all beef
Ball Park
Bar S
Gwaltney
Morrell
Johnsonville cheesy sausages
Hebrew National 100% beef
Nathans
It turns out I like a pork and beef mix, better than 100% beef. This is probably because I expect that pork flavor, having rarely had 100% beef growing up.
I tweaked recipe to increase flavor after test patty.
Recipe for 1000g meatblock
62% pork butt, 15% fat
18.5% brisket, 15% fat
19.5% pork fat from shoulder butts
(Total fat was calculated 31.5%)
Salt 1.8% 18g
Cure1 0.25%, 2.5g
Paprika 0.2% 2g
White pepper 0.2% 2g
Coriander 0.2% 2g
Mace 0.5%, 0.5g
Onion powder 0.1% 1g
Garlic, granul. 0.3% 3g
Celery seed powder 0.05% 0.5g
Water 15%, 150ml
Binder, SureGel, 1% 10g
Optional Accelerators, let you stuff/smoke/cook in 1 day, increase color:
Sodium Erythorbate 0.5g, < 547ppm
Ascorbic Acid, vitaminC, 0.4g
Optional to skip smoking, direct to sous vide:
Hickory smoke powder 1.25g
Grind: I did a 3mm grind on mostly frozen meat, refroze and did a 2nd 3mm grind.
Mix: 25 lb manual mixer, hard fast mix 7 minutes with 2 people. Looked darn close to food processor emulsified, difficult to pull meat apart.
Stuff: I didn’t have the 26mm cellulose “black stripe” casing that I planned on using. These are non-edible tough plastic that strips off at end. However, I did have the 26mm “Clear Collagen”, which is also extremely tough, and falls off brats often… so I used that. Each strand in the 3pack is supposed to hold 16.7 lbs, and I had 15 lbs. Seems accurate as I had about 1" from a strand unused at end.
Linking: These clear collagen cases, IMO are really ONLY usable for hotdogs. I tried them for brats, EXTREMELY TOUGH, everyone just removed the casing they were so tough. Also, they are IMPOSSIBLE to link via a twist! All twists will just undo themselves. So it is pretty much mandatory that you use the triple-link method, which keeps the links from unraveling, or you have to tie each one with twine. The casing is tough enough to do this without bursting, but you must stuff them QUITE LOOSE, looser than snacksticks using same type casing.
Cooking: I planned on smoking these, but wasn’t sure how these clear collagen would do smoking/drying for several hours, then into water to finish. So I elected to instead go straight to sous vide, cooking at 167f. A 26mm sausage should cook through in 30 min at 167f. I did 1 hr, IT was 160f. Excellent bind, no fat out or in water.
To still get correct flavor, I used Hickory Smoke Powder at 0.125% or 1.25g per kg, which gives an excellent smoke flavor, MUCH better than liquid smoke.
I had a sizeable patty left unstuffed, so fried it up thin almost like Taylor Pork Roll, a similar flavor profile but fermented.
Stripping cases: popped right off
Looks: not as much color as I expected, greyish pink out of sous vide. But upon frying up hotdog, got good pink color. The exterior browning from smoke was missing, browned in pan. Texture, these look like a normal fully emulsified hotdog, mouthfeel is same.
Taste: tastes like a great hotdog, just like I expected. After test patty, I boosted salt to 1.8% up from 1.6%, was trying to be healthy but more salt is better in hotdog.
Recommendations:
-If possible, a straight smoke with no sous vide will give better color and probably keep flavors more concentrated. Will smoke next time.
-If you like TX beef sausage or coney island dogs, add 1.0g of cayenne.
-Would be great with mostly beef, will try 50% beef next.
-Most commercial top brands like OM and Costco Kirkland are 2.5% salt. This recipe gives 2.0% when cure1 salt is accounted for... bumping salt up would definitely add flavor! I think trying to reduce salt in custom artisan sausages is the wrong place to modify salt for diet, and will probably bump up to 2.3% added salt for 2.5% total, next time.
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