Salt ratio for Fresh Sausage ?

[olecrosseyes]

It's time for me to make fresh sausage again. What are your go to ratios of salt per pound of pork shoulder?

When we are talking about salt, does it matter to you what kind of sausage you are making?
Sweet Italian Sausage
Hot Italian Sausage
Breakfast Sausage

When I'm asking about the salt content please be specific on the grain whether it be, kosher, pickling or iodized table salt or does matter to you?

Thanks for your inputs in advance!
Denny O

 

[DanMcG]

For salt in fresh sausage, I go about 1.5% of the meat weight. It doesn't matter what sausage I'm making.
Don't use iodized salt, other than that to me salt is salt and the grain size doesn't matter. I usually dissolve it in some water with the spices and mix it into the meat.

 

[olecrosseyes]

I appreciate your answer in weight. So for 3 pounds you would add about 4 1/3rd teaspoons?

 

[DanMcG]

I'd have to think about that, I measure by weight, not volume.
3 lbs would be 1362 grams and 1.5% of that would be 20.5 gms.

 

[DanMcG]

Here's where you run into trouble with types of salt measured by volume.
Kosher salt is 12 grams per TBSP, and table salt weighs 22 grams per TBSP (info from Len Polis site) So you'd want less then 2 of kosher or one of table salt.

Take a look at some of these recipes to get an idea of volume.
http://lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage recipes.htm#FRESH

 

[daveomak]

But a grams scale... About $12... get one that is a 0-100 grams range....

 

[chef jimmyj]

Can't go wrong with this highly rated Scale...JJ

 

[crazymoon]

OCE, I'm chiming in to say what others are saying and that is to buy a cheap scale.It will make any sausage recipe measuring so much easier. My go to recipe for 10 pounds of hot Italian calls for 4 tablespoons . I just looked and most of the recipes I have call for that amount of salt per 10 pounds. I alway use NON-iodized salt.

 

[daveomak]

I have this one

A good scale..

 

[olecrosseyes]

Sorry guys I know better than to ask a question about salt in a volume form. Yes I have digital scales, it was late last night and I wasn't thinking, dumb me!

So 1.5 % sounds very close to the rest of you?

 

[olecrosseyes]

DanMcG, many thanks for the link!!
crazymoon Thank you for the "in general" or "as a rule of thumb" comment.

 

[W.O.W.]

OCE, I'm chiming in to say what others are saying and that is to buy a cheap scale.It will make any sausage recipe measuring so much easier. My go to recipe for 10 pounds of hot Italian calls for 4 tablespoons . I just looked and most of the recipes I have call for that amount of salt per 10 pounds. I alway use NON-iodized salt.

Why non iodised salt. ? ? Up until now I have always used iodised table salt. I need to understand the difference when being used in fresh sausage .

 

[daveomak]

the anti caking ingredients can add an off flavor... Use Kosher salt and weigh it.... 2% is a good starting point...

 

[W.O.W.]

the anti caking ingredients can add an off flavor... Use Kosher salt and weigh it.... 2% is a good starting point...

Thanks for your reply but OMG , I am not into metric and grams and stuff at all and need to go by teaspoon or tablespoons etc. I understand Kosher has a different weight per volume than ordinary table salt . How does a teaspoon of Kosher compare with a teaspoon of ordinary salt . Would it be somewhat lighter than iodised table salt ?
How about non iodised salt
I wouldn't have a clue how to use a gram scale and would make some pretty bad mistakes with guesswork using one .

 

[daveomak]

Try google

 

[chef jimmyj]

A Tablespoon of Diamond Crystal Kosher is Half the weight of Table Salt. Mortons Kosher is 30% lighter for a given Volume of Table Salt. If you Weigh using a Scale, 1 ounce is 1 ounce so it don't matter if you use Rock Salt or Super Fine Salt...JJ

 

[W.O.W.]

⁸

 

[W.O.W.]

Well, as daveomack suggested to try Google I did and found one teaspoon of table salt weighs 0.20 ounces in my language and a teaspoon of kosher is 0.21 so practically negligible for my purposes .

 

[chef jimmyj]

We don't use Iodized Salt because with the amounts in Sausage and Curing, the Iodine gives a Metallic flavor to the meat. Also, with Salt, as the Volume increases, the Weight Difference between Table and Kosher increases, dramatically...JJ

 

[daveomak]

You might have checked a bit deeper...... This is what I found....

Salt additions should be weighed to have consistency between types of salt

Salt Type ..........................................Weight of 1/4 cup (grams)

Morton’s Table Salt..................................... 76.0
Morton Pickling Salt.................................... 74.0
La Baleine Coarse Sea Salt.........................66.8
La Baleine Fine Sea Salt............................ 64.8
Morton’s Kosher Salt.................................. 62.0
Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt..................... 45.2
Maldon Sea Salt......................................... 33.2