Getting cooler in Missouri and decided to do another batch of this sausage from the Kutas "Great Sausage Recipes" book (p.373) This time I planned to produce my best batch ever, but missed by a little.
Got into trouble right away by running good fatback through a fine plate:
Last time I diced it by hand and got much better results. I didn't add this fat because I thought it would smear with the ground meat and not give me the little white fat chunks I like to see. So, instead I ground another pound of fatty butt, through a large plate, to make up the difference.
This was a standard butt (got it for 89cents!)
Used the bigger hog casings (38) and all looked okay. Only recipe change was increasing the pepper by one T and tripled the garlic.
I used a fan to dry the links well before going in the smoker. Here I had another snafu; didn't realize that my MES wasn't turned on and with the remote thought I was applying heat for 2 hours before discovering I was only cold smoking. With heat added I had 5 hours of smoke total, and finished in convection oven to get a uniform internal temp of 151 degrees.
Here's where I stood at that point. After a day the recipe calls for a cold smoke. Here I used a mail box type approach I
read about here, modified with what I had:
Was quite pleased with the results as it was in the 60's outside, and that's where my smoker was; no heat in the MES! As I was running a heavy smoke from the AMNPS both in the hot and cold smoke phases (I may have that spelling wrong) I cut the cold smoke time down to 6 instead of 12 hours. I have over smoked stuff before.
I used to always have the cold smoke temp creep up, but now with this setup.
Then dried a couple days in a cool basement, with my humidifier getting the room to 70%. Pulled the sausage after a 20% weight loss.End result:
I'd give this effort a solid B. It was a 50-50 mix of pork and venison. I wish I would have chopped the fatback and added that as I had planned. I guess I just like a little fattier sausage. I drink diet soda and light beer often, probably kidding myself that a little extra sausage fat won't hurt!! Also I ground the pork with a big plate and the venison with a small plate. Don't know I'd do that again. That smaller plate gave a finer grind than I expected; not as chunky as I would prefer. Then, when drying the sausage, I used a small fan to keep the air moving in my basement room, with outside window open; don't know I'd do that again as I may have dried the sausage out faster than I should have, but that could simply be I didn't use as much fat as I prefer. Overall I'm pleased with the result, but also looking for ways to improve. Thanks for looking!!
Got into trouble right away by running good fatback through a fine plate:
Last time I diced it by hand and got much better results. I didn't add this fat because I thought it would smear with the ground meat and not give me the little white fat chunks I like to see. So, instead I ground another pound of fatty butt, through a large plate, to make up the difference.
This was a standard butt (got it for 89cents!)
Used the bigger hog casings (38) and all looked okay. Only recipe change was increasing the pepper by one T and tripled the garlic.
I used a fan to dry the links well before going in the smoker. Here I had another snafu; didn't realize that my MES wasn't turned on and with the remote thought I was applying heat for 2 hours before discovering I was only cold smoking. With heat added I had 5 hours of smoke total, and finished in convection oven to get a uniform internal temp of 151 degrees.
Here's where I stood at that point. After a day the recipe calls for a cold smoke. Here I used a mail box type approach I
read about here, modified with what I had:
Was quite pleased with the results as it was in the 60's outside, and that's where my smoker was; no heat in the MES! As I was running a heavy smoke from the AMNPS both in the hot and cold smoke phases (I may have that spelling wrong) I cut the cold smoke time down to 6 instead of 12 hours. I have over smoked stuff before.
I used to always have the cold smoke temp creep up, but now with this setup.
Then dried a couple days in a cool basement, with my humidifier getting the room to 70%. Pulled the sausage after a 20% weight loss.End result:
I'd give this effort a solid B. It was a 50-50 mix of pork and venison. I wish I would have chopped the fatback and added that as I had planned. I guess I just like a little fattier sausage. I drink diet soda and light beer often, probably kidding myself that a little extra sausage fat won't hurt!! Also I ground the pork with a big plate and the venison with a small plate. Don't know I'd do that again. That smaller plate gave a finer grind than I expected; not as chunky as I would prefer. Then, when drying the sausage, I used a small fan to keep the air moving in my basement room, with outside window open; don't know I'd do that again as I may have dried the sausage out faster than I should have, but that could simply be I didn't use as much fat as I prefer. Overall I'm pleased with the result, but also looking for ways to improve. Thanks for looking!!
