Sausage weekend

[JC in GB]

Good day all. TomKnollRFV and I got together again to do a sausage making run.

Once again, thank to the Knoll family for being gracious hosts and allowing me to mess up their kitchen.

We did three types of sausage.

A garlic pepper summer sausage.

A spicy Moroccan style merguez sausage.

A traditional, old world Polska Kielbasa Wedzona.

All sausages turned out very well.

The merguez is a fresh sausage and didn't need smoking. When I tasted it I thought this needs to go into a burrito or some naan with a spicy yogurt sauce.
The flavor is similar to a Spanish chorizo.

The smoked sauages got a full day in the smoker. I used Oak/Cherry/Hickory pellets and Hickory chunks for smoke wood. I started out with a cold smoke at 40 degrees for 3 hours. I then raised the temperature to 140 F for the next 3 hours. Next 2 hours were at 160 F. Raised temp to 170 F and went until Kielbasa was done. Pulled Kielbasa then let summer sausage finish cooking.

I included a photo of the sausage hanging bars that I had fabricated for doing sausage. I got these for a pack of the brats I made last time. I love to barter!! Even better news, the guy wants more of those brats.

Results:

Of the three, the merguez was my least favorite. It had loads of flavor but I think I didn't cook it properly so it came out dense and dry.

Second was the summer sausage. The summer sausage came out excellent. Great texture and flavor. Will be doing more of this type of sausage in the future.
We used the LEM fibrous casings on the summer sausage and they worked out very well.

The Polska Kielbasa Wedzona was fantastic. Great flavor and had that nice snap to the casing.

I used the recipe out of the Polish sausage book by Marianski and followed the recipe as closely as I could. I used a combination of cold and hot smoke but didn't have the time do do the days long cold smoke.

Photos: Polish, merguez, summer.

Thanks for looking.

JC

 

[chopsaw]

Nice work . Like the color on the Polish .

 

[thirdeye]

The last batch of Merguez sausage I made I was at the end of my sheep casings, so I wound up with about 3# of bulk which I packaged into 1# logs. The coils were very good, and they have a lot of eye appeal when grilled.... but I really liked making meatballs and patties for sandwiches from the bulk. Usually Mrs ~t~ would make a tzatziki or a dill yogurt sauce since Merguez tends to be a little spicy.

 

[boykjo]

Nice Job..................

 

[sawhorseray]

Nice piece of work, your links look great. Was the Merguez a 50-50 mix of porkbutt and lamb meat? I haven't made a batch in years, it's one of my favorites on a plate. RAY

 

[JC in GB]

Nice piece of work, your links look great. Was the Merguez a 50-50 mix of porkbutt and lamb meat? I haven't made a batch in years, it's one of my favorites on a plate. RAY

No we didn't want to incur the expense of lamb meat on our first go so we went with ground beef and then added a coarse ground tri tip with fat to the mix.

From what I have read, beef makes a good merguez style sausage as well as lamb. Lamb fat has more of a gamey flavor than beef it is said....

I am really looking forward to making some burrito meat with the next pack of sausages I use.

JC

 

[JC in GB]

Nice work . Like the color on the Polish .

Thanks. Yes, so do I . That Polish turned out so well. Great taste and texture. I just don't want to stop eating it...

 

[JC in GB]

Thanks. Yes, so do I . I figured the Oak/Cherry/Hickory pellets would impart a nice color. That Polish turned out so well. Great taste and texture. I just don't want to stop eating it...

Don't know why this duplicate posted....

 

[pushok2018]

Very nice color on Wedzona! I am sure it tastes great.... Any chance you can show us picks with sliced sausages?

 

[TomKnollRFV]

I hope JC's turns out better then mine; my smoker keeled over on me again so I had to sous vide attempt summer sausage etc. Though that mostly turned out alright :)

The Merguez has been the favourite out of the bunch for my family so far; I actually put some of them on the grill with charcoal when removing bits from my Masterbuilt to see what was going on. <JC and I are planning to PID control the masterbuilt at this point and I'm planning to buy a storage shed in effect to put it into when not in use vs keeping it just covered!!>

I've read in some parts of Europe they just opt for Pork for the Merguez Sausage; has any one ever done it this way?

 

[gmc2003]

Looks and sounds like a true sausage success partnership.

Point for sure
Chris

 

[xray]

Looks real good guys!

 

[thirdeye]

I hope JC's turns out better then mine; my smoker keeled over on me again so I had to sous vide attempt summer sausage etc. Though that mostly turned out alright :)

The Merguez has been the favourite out of the bunch for my family so far; I actually put some of them on the grill with charcoal when removing bits from my Masterbuilt to see what was going on. <JC and I are planning to PID control the masterbuilt at this point and I'm planning to buy a storage shed in effect to put it into when not in use vs keeping it just covered!!>

I've read in some parts of Europe they just opt for Pork for the Merguez Sausage; has any one ever done it this way?

One year a chef friend grilled racks of lamb and beef fillets for an open house at a medical center, but the lamb racks came with the caps on. He saved the better lamb trimmings which was about 8#'s worth. We cut it with 4# of ground pork butt and made it all into bulk Merguez. It was quite good and still retained some of the lamb flavor. It was about like adding some pork to venison sausage. Frankly, I think it would be just fine with all pork as long as you used butt and not leaner muscles.

 

[TomKnollRFV]

One year a chef friend grilled racks of lamb and beef fillets for an open house at a medical center, but the lamb racks came with the caps on. He saved the better lamb trimmings which was about 8#'s worth. We cut it with 4# of ground pork butt and made it all into bulk Merguez. It was quite good and still retained some of the lamb flavor. It was about like adding some pork to venison sausage. Frankly, I think it would be just fine with all pork as long as you used butt and not leaner muscles.

Thanks for letting us know!

JC maybe we should do mostly pork butt with some tri tip for Merguez...

After showing a friend my saturday project with JC he asked if we'd make some Italian Sausage for him and his wife.. ..so it begins.. LOL

 

[JC in GB]

Thanks for letting us know!

JC maybe we should do mostly pork butt with some tri tip for Merguez...

After showing a friend my saturday project with JC he asked if we'd make some Italian Sausage for him and his wife.. ..so it begins.. LOL

I got orders already myself. No worries, I love to do meat processing so if someone wants to pay me to do it, all the better.

Wouldn't mind doing another round of brats. Some sweet Italian sausage would be great too.

 

[JC in GB]

Very nice color on Wedzona! I am sure it tastes great.... Any chance you can show us picks with sliced sausages?

I will add some pics of the sliced sausage later today.....

JC

 

[sawhorseray]

"Of the three, the merguez was my least favorite. It had loads of flavor but I think I didn't cook it properly so it came out dense and dry."

Dry sausage is usually due to insufficient fat content. I've made a ton of wild hog sausage and some venison sausage also. Usually cutting the wild meat with 35-40% domestic porkbutt will do, there have been a few times I needed to add some backfat. RAY

 

[tropics]

Looks good from here
Richie

 

[JC in GB]

"Of the three, the merguez was my least favorite. It had loads of flavor but I think I didn't cook it properly so it came out dense and dry."

Dry sausage is usually due to insufficient fat content. I've made a ton of wild hog sausage and some venison sausage also. Usually cutting the wild meat with 35-40% domestic porkbutt will do, there have been a few times I needed to add some backfat. RAY

Good advice. I think I got it too hot and I got fat out condition. TomKnollRFV grilled his and he said they were great. I will take the blame on this one. I will find out on the next cook if it was me or not enough fat in the mix.

JC

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Good advice. I think I got it too hot and I got fat out condition. TomKnollRFV grilled his and he said they were great. I will take the blame on this one. I will find out on the next cook if it was me or not enough fat in the mix.

JC

I wonder if we didn't make the tri tip to coarse... but I think the fat mixture is correct, we used a base line of 81/19 and added that tri-tip and it had a very nice fat cap to it. Though I think our fellow hobbyists who mentioned pork butt blend are on the money. I'd like to try a mix of pork butt and beef. No worries about not enough fat in the mix then! Plus we could do a coarser grind on the pork butt for texture!