More Columbian Santarosano Chorizo (St. Rose Sausage)

[I-am-Chorizo]

I looked at your mix and the first think I thought was "protein extraction from not mixing enough." That being said, you mix looked similar to I-am-Chorizo 's,

By the way, I attach some pictures of my 20KG batch. It was an insane load for 2 people and my small DIY smoker. Eventhough my mix is similar to H HushyQ , I think the texture ended up being quite different. Take a look!

 

[SmokinEdge]

So, not sure if I'm supposed to start a new post but I thought I'd keep this one going as others have with my attempt at Santa Rosana sausage. I made one major change in the meat selection and I fear it was my downfall. Any advice would be appreciated.

So, I made the sausage as the recipe lists with one major change, er, f up. When I went to pick up pork I noticed prices were pretty steep and the cheapest by far was pork tenderloin. Since I-am-Chorizo mentioned that this type of sausage is usually lean I decided to go for it. I used pork tenderloin and fatty pork belly as well as some additional pork fat to make this sausage. I normally use butt and belly but figured this would be a good experiment. Wrong. While the taste was delicous, the texture was off. I thought my bind was good. Nice and sticky but my results as you can see by my cut shot was not great. A bit mealy and a but mushy. I got no complaints from family and in fact they all ate plenty but the texture thing just disappointed. So, here are my questions.
Was it a Big Mistake to use pork tenderloin?
Was it a mistake to add the wine at the grind and did letting it cure with wine for 48 hours do damage to my texture. Here are the pics.
View attachment 697796View attachment 697794View attachment 697793View attachment 697795View attachment 697797
Hey, at least I'm getting the hang of linking, LOL,
I usually like bold flavored sausage but this was an excellent change of pace. I did a much lighter smoke than usual and really enjoyed the flavor. Any thoughts on the texture problems is much appreciated, Thanks?
edit.... My fat ratio was estimated at 21% and I usually go closer to 30%.

looks good. As to texture, the loin really shouldn’t be a problem. I make a couple different Polish style that are hand cut loin in 1” cubes and no texture problems.

The pic of your mixed sausage looks low on protein extraction to me. Also when I add wine I always add it at the very end after everything is mixed and proteins extracted, then mix to incorporate then stuff and rest. Just stay after it everything will come together in time. Also in this particular sausage I like the flavor the wine brings, but it’s not necessary. I add 40-60ml wine to 1Kg, any additional liquid is ice water.

 

[Dave in AZ]

Jumped on the bandwagon. Many thanks to I-am-Chorizo for this great recipe!
Will do a writeup later, after they finish smoking. However, the test patty was excellent!
I went 1.6% salt, same spice amounts as IamChorizo which was more for me than geostriata calculated (1 tsp weighed approx 20-30% more on all spices). Red wine at 30ml per kg, same as SmokinEdge , and dry granulated garlic instead of fresh or roasted as I like the flavor better in sausage. Oh, 20% fat pure pork shoulder, 6mm grind, strong extraction. Used both SE and ascorbic acid i.e. vitaminC, to allow immediate smoking, as well as strong color and flavor protection.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Jumped on the bandwagon. Many thanks to I-am-Chorizo for this great recipe!
Will do a writeup later, after they finish smoking. However, the test patty was excellent!
I went 1.6% salt, same spice amounts as IamChorizo which was more for me than geostriata calculated (1 tsp weighed approx 20-30% more on all spices). Red wine at 30ml per kg, same as SmokinEdge , and dry granulated garlic instead of fresh or roasted as I like the flavor better in sausage. Oh, 20% fat pure pork shoulder, 6mm grind, strong extraction. Used both SE and ascorbic acid i.e. vitaminC, to allow immediate smoking, as well as strong color and flavor protection.

View attachment 697922View attachment 697923

Them patties look delicious.

 

[DougE]

Jumped on the bandwagon. Many thanks to I-am-Chorizo for this great recipe!
Will do a writeup later, after they finish smoking. However, the test patty was excellent!
I went 1.6% salt, same spice amounts as IamChorizo which was more for me than geostriata calculated (1 tsp weighed approx 20-30% more on all spices). Red wine at 30ml per kg, same as SmokinEdge , and dry granulated garlic instead of fresh or roasted as I like the flavor better in sausage. Oh, 20% fat pure pork shoulder, 6mm grind, strong extraction. Used both SE and ascorbic acid i.e. vitaminC, to allow immediate smoking, as well as strong color and flavor protection.

View attachment 697922View attachment 697923

Liking what I see!

 

[geostriata]

I went 1.6% salt, same spice amounts as IamChorizo which was more for me than geostriata calculated (1 tsp weighed approx 20-30% more on all spices).

Weird. I wonder why that is. I used a milligram-precision scale. Maybe my spices were more granular... Oh well, such is the inherent weakness of volume-based measurements for particulate solids... You're probably right, though. Maybe my teaspoon is undersized and expects a rounded spice amount (which is dumb).

In any case, yeah, your patties look great!

 

[DougE]

Weird. I wonder why that is. I used a milligram-precision scale. Maybe my spices were more granular... Oh well, such is the inherent weakness of volume-based measurements for particulate solids...

In any case, yeah, your patties look great!

Maybe shows you how much a set of measuring spoons can vary from one set to another. That's what got me to prefer going by weight VS volume measurements.

I have 1 set of measuring spoons, and if a recipe is in volume, I convert it to grams and tweak as necessary until I'm satisfied with the spice profile.

 

[geostriata]

Maybe shows you how much a set of measuring spoons can vary from one set to another. That's what got me to prefer going by weight VS volume measurements.

I have 1 set of measuring spoons, and if a recipe is in volume, I convert it to grams and tweak as necessary until I'm satisfied with the spice profile.

Yeah. As a tool of measurement, they really shouldn't vary. *shrug* Sad part is that I skipped my favorite ones since they were in the dishwasher. I bet those are more accurate. I just bought another set so I won't make that error again when doing volume measurements.

But yeah, I always use weight for everything wherever possible.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Yeah. As a tool of measurement, they really shouldn't vary. *shrug* Sad part is that I skipped my favorite ones since they were in the dishwasher. I bet those are more accurate. I just bought another set so I won't make that error again when doing volume measurements.

But yeah, I always use weight for everything wherever possible.

Volume is bad for a lot of reasons. 1tsp of fine salt is much heavier than 1tsp of kosher salt because of the difference in grain size, more air voids in the kosher. But also 1tsp of ground sage weighs different than the same in rubbed sage, again it’s a bulk thing. The list goes on but weight is where you get 100% repeatable recipe results.

 

[DougE]

The list goes on but weight is where you get 100% repeatable recipe results.

Yep. A gram of whatever is the same no matter the grain size, whereas with volume, it does matter, also, as I have said, measuring spoons vary set to set.

 

[Dave in AZ]

Weird. I wonder why that is. I used a milligram-precision scale. Maybe my spices were more granular... Oh well, such is the inherent weakness of volume-based measurements for particulate solids... You're probably right, though. Maybe my teaspoon is undersized and expects a rounded spice amount (which is dumb).

In any case, yeah, your patties look great!

DougE
SmokinEdge

I have a thread elsewhere where I weighed 1 tsp of 40 spices and converted it all to grams. I used 3 teaspoons, each was different, one was 20% larger! They're just cheap stamped metal or molded plastic.
I ended up using a scientific graduated cylinder for 5ml, which is what a tsp is supposed to be. Plastic one. The plastic cups for medicine are also more accurate.

Then I did 3 measurements each spoon and averaged. These were often 10% different just due to packing.

Then different spice grinds made huge difference, so ground thyme or sage up to 100% heavier than chopped leaf versions.

As you all noted, the upshoot is that all recipes should be given using WEIGHT, not volume, for repeatability... volume measures can easily lead to folks having 2x or 50% the spice as someone else.

If i can find the link, I'll post it here, it's a pretty useful chart. I also calculate the salt in various soy sauce, fish sauce, and spice blends like season salt, Tony Chachares cajun blend, etc.

 

[DougE]

As you all noted, the upshoot is that all recipes should be given using WEIGHT, not volume, for repeatability... volume measures can easily lead to folks having 2x or 50% the spice as someone else.

No argument here.

 

[geostriata]

I ended up using a scientific graduated cylinder for 5ml, which is what a tsp is supposed to be. Plastic one. The plastic cups for medicine are also more accurate.

Good idea. I have a 10ml graduated cylinder. I can at least try to calibrate against that.

I think we're all 100% about using weight. The issue here was in the translation from volume measurements, which for all we know was measured with spoons similar to mine. So we really don't know, the best we can do I suppose without more information is shoot closest to 5ml/tsp and hope that it's close.

Either that or buy some Columbian measuring spoons and compare, lol. Or ask I-am-Chorizo how many grams 1tsp of a given spice weighs using their teaspoon. Either way, I'm sure we're not too far off or it doesn't matter too much since I'd imagine D Dave in AZ is probably similarly happy with his results.

 

[HushyQ]

This looks a lot like my first chorizos, the texture, I mean. But no idea which could have been the issue. I can't be 100% sure it was the tenderloin, but when I have used it in chorizos, I always got disappointing results. I don't use it anymore in spite of being a cheap lean cut. I blame it (maybe unfairly) of giving me dry and somehow crumbly chorizos.

Thanks for the feedback I-am-Chorizo . I will definitely do again

 

[HushyQ]

So in my comparison between wine and water, the most the wine really did was to cause it to take another minute for me to reach "sticky." In my batch, I let it cure with the wine for ~18hrs or so, so I don't think that's the culprit here.

I looked at your mix and the first think I thought was "protein extraction from not mixing enough." That being said, you mix looked similar to I-am-Chorizo 's, so I'm not sure about that. Here's a 3-way side by side with yours on the left:

View attachment 697900

You also didn't mention much fat-out, so I'm guessing that your hypothesis is mainly correct: the lean/fat ratio was off. The tenderloin you purchased needed some back fat or other pork fat to increase the fat content.

Did you estimate your fat by volume or by weight? If you used volume, then perhaps your actual ratio was more like 15% instead of 21%.

That being said, I've also had batches with low fat content and they still had a more consistent cut. So I wonder if you also had partial or incomplete extraction. I find I have to mix with wine about 20% longer than without, so maybe you mixed as you usually did, but it needed a little more...

My two cents, anyways. Your pictures look really good, and you're so much better at linking than me, haha. I'm glad your family enjoyed it, and that indicates to me that you were at least most of the way there with this sausage, I think.

Thanks G geostriata I use weight for my meat and fat ratio but had to estimate because of the Pork belly I used. It was very fatty. What I didn't use when making PBBE. I also added 1 lb of brisket fat to increase the fat ratio. Another mistake I made was not hand cutting larger chunks. I have 3 plates and don't know the mm(3 & 10?). fine, large and kidney. I ground the pork belly, fat and a bit of the loin on fine. The rest of the tenderloins I did with the large plate. I like your theory about not mixing enough as I just did my usual and it stuck to my hand like all the others so off I went to the fridge.
About the linking; I now go pretty slow and link one at a time. Trying to remember to alternate "toward me" "away" which I usually mess up, lol.

Here is the meat/fat ratio. I wish I took pics of it.

Pork Tenderloin 2324 g
Pork Belly, very fatty 964 g
Brisket fat 205 g
3493 Total weight 7.7 lbs
approximately. 21% fat

 

[HushyQ]

looks good. As to texture, the loin really shouldn’t be a problem. I make a couple different Polish style that are hand cut loin in 1” cubes and no texture problems.

The pic of your mixed sausage looks low on protein extraction to me. Also when I add wine I always add it at the very end after everything is mixed and proteins extracted, then mix to incorporate then stuff and rest. Just stay after it everything will come together in time. Also in this particular sausage I like the flavor the wine brings, but it’s not necessary. I add 40-60ml wine to 1Kg, any additional liquid is ice water.

Always love your feedback SmokinEdge so thanks. I am not good enough to tell by sight if there is enough protein extraction but again, it was as sticky as usual for me. I did not follow your advice and add the wine at the end of mixing. I will definitely do that next time. I too like what the wine brought. Much better than beer in Jalapeño/Chedder, Uhgggg. Never again.
Now I have to pick up some liver and fava beans to go with the rest of my "nice Chianti
fwt, fwt,fwt,fwt,fwt"

 

[I-am-Chorizo]

My apologies to G geostriata for using his Thread as a platform for a non-sausage related question. SmokinEdge The curing bug has bit me hard...I am thinking about getting a pork leg (or part of it) curing it and making as beautiful cooked ham nad have several questions about it. Where in the forum is the right place to do so?

PS: Apologies to all sausage fellows for having violated the sacred shrine of our sacred sausage world and asking a Ham-related question.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SmokinEdge]

My apologies to G geostriata for using his Thread as a platform for a non-sausage related question. SmokinEdge The curing bug has bit me hard...I am thinking about getting a pork leg (or part of it) curing it and making as beautiful cooked ham nad have several questions about it. Where in the forum is the right place to do so?

PS: Apologies to all sausage fellows for having violated the sacred shrine of our sacred sausage world and asking a Ham-related question.

Thanks in advance.

I’ll send you a private message and we can get you headed in the right direction.

 

[I-am-Chorizo]

I’ll send you a private message and we can get you headed in the right direction.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Dave in AZ]

I did a whole thread writeup on mine, to not overly derail geostriata's thread.
I also videotaped the whole thing if interested
Here is my thread:

Dave In AZ Santa Rosano Chorizo with video, yet another St Rose Sausage, it's great!

This is an amazing smoked sausage from Columbia, that is an instant classic for me--good enough to go in any Top 5 with the likes of Italian, Smoked Polish, Brats, and Texas Beef sausage. My wife tried the test patty and immediately said, "This is like Chinese dumpling filling or shu-mai, love...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

Thanks again to everyone for a great recipe and testing notes!