Trying to clone Conecuh sausage

[jaxrmrjmr]

Most forums have a common problem. Nobody wants to say "I don't have a clue", so they post something mostly irrelevant, but in the ballpark of an answer. The regular traditional flavoring and the "hot & spicy" have hints of licorice/anise,oregano and some rosemary in it..not a lot, but some. The founder of the original slaughterhouse and freezer plant that became Conecuh Quick Freeze was a WWII Vet that fought in the Italian campaigns and stayed during part of the occupation, until 1947. It's possible that he remembered some of the italian sausage flavorings using anise. My grandfather was a trial lawyer in conecuh/covington counties in the 60s and 70s, and was good friends with the Sessions family and represented them a couple of times. He would buy a lot of it just before christmas and gifted it to his contacts and lawyer friends in north alabama and georgia.

I have dissected some of the raw sausage and you can clearly see fairly large pieces of black peppercorns, so they probably aren't using fine grind pepper. They list sugar, and when you look at the uncooked sausage it doesn't have enough of the caramel color to make me think brown sugar..so it's probably white cane sugar. It has some garlic flavor in it - but I don't think a lot..and i have never tasted any onion in it. They are definitely using some liquid smoke in it. I've eaten a few pieces of it raw, and you can taste the liquid smoke.

I am going to make several 1lb batches, and play around with ratios of anise, coarse freshly ground black pepper, white sugar, karo white, garlic powder, morton tender quick, and cayenne powder. I have the 19mm sheep casing on order from midway. It looks like they are using a very coarse grind so i will use the coarse plate. I will start out cutting the shoulder into 1" cubes, and soaking them in brine with all those spices in it for a few days. There is just enough of a hint of italian in it to distinguish it from the other traditional hickory smoked sausages from that area of south alabama. The trick will be not overpowering it with the anise, rosemary and oregano

It will be interesting what you find out.

 

[SonOfTheSouth]

Most forums have a common problem. Nobody wants to say "I don't have a clue", so they post something mostly irrelevant, but in the ballpark of an answer. The regular traditional flavoring and the "hot & spicy" have hints of licorice/anise,oregano and some rosemary in it..not a lot, but some. The founder of the original slaughterhouse and freezer plant that became Conecuh Quick Freeze was a WWII Vet that fought in the Italian campaigns and stayed during part of the occupation, until 1947. It's possible that he remembered some of the italian sausage flavorings using anise. My grandfather was a trial lawyer in conecuh/covington counties in the 60s and 70s, and was good friends with the Sessions family and represented them a couple of times. He would buy a lot of it just before christmas and gifted it to his contacts and lawyer friends in north alabama and georgia.

I have dissected some of the raw sausage and you can clearly see fairly large pieces of black peppercorns, so they probably aren't using fine grind pepper. They list sugar, and when you look at the uncooked sausage it doesn't have enough of the caramel color to make me think brown sugar..so it's probably white cane sugar. It has some garlic flavor in it - but I don't think a lot..and i have never tasted any onion in it. They are definitely using some liquid smoke in it. I've eaten a few pieces of it raw, and you can taste the liquid smoke.

I am going to make several 1lb batches, and play around with ratios of anise, coarse freshly ground black pepper, white sugar, karo white, garlic powder, morton tender quick, and cayenne powder. I have the 19mm sheep casing on order from midway. It looks like they are using a very coarse grind so i will use the coarse plate. I will start out cutting the shoulder into 1" cubes, and soaking them in brine with all those spices in it for a few days. There is just enough of a hint of italian in it to distinguish it from the other traditional hickory smoked sausages from that area of south alabama. The trick will be not overpowering it with the anise, rosemary and oregano

I am very interested in what you come up with in your test runs, I am a avid sausage maker and this is my favorite sausage I ever ate!

 

[BGKYSmoker]

You can use just about any mix, you will need to add salt (if not already in the pre mix) dextrose, sugar, msg, sodium erythorbate and nitrite. To get the original taste you will need some msg.

Conecuh is just the brand name from Alabama.

 

[travisntexas]

I'm glad to see that someone woke this thread up again. We used to not be able to get Conecuh west of LA, but they recently expanded into Texas. I've been bringing it home from Mississippi for 15-20 years. I love the smaller diameter Hickory Smoked and Hot types. Only sausage I use in Gumbeaux and Red Beans. Love to fry it up for breakfast and throw it on the grill as well! I would love to be able to clone it and look forward to the results!

 

[Steve H]

I remember other threads about this sausage. And found some at Lowes while shopping for dinner. Bought 5 packs. Thinking I'll get more.

While on vacation. I'm always looking for new things to try. Also bought a sack of Carolina Plantation stone ground grits.

 

[mike243]

These are my very favorite in the hot for making jambalaya, the regular is good and I will mix them 1 hot to 2 regular to keep the heat down on it so others can enjoy it with me lol

 

[radioguy]

Thanks J Jasbeth for the recipe, going to make some soon.

RG

 

[912smoker]

Let us know how it turns out.

Also try their rubs if you get a chance !
I have only seen them on 2 occasions at a small town Piggly Wiggly. But the meat Mgr had placed a new order !

Keith

 

[kelbro]

One of my favorites. The only place that I can find them here is at Publix grocery stores.

 

[bill ace 350]

I remember other threads about this sausage. And found some at Lowes while shopping for dinner. Bought 5 packs. Thinking I'll get more.

View attachment 641231

While on vacation. I'm always looking for new things to try. Also bought a sack of Carolina Plantation stone ground grits.

I buy it at the commissary. Just had some of the cracked black pepper ones. Decent sausage for sure.

 

[jaxrmrjmr]

Jasbeth - I sort of tried your recipe tonight. I had 1.7 lbs of ground pork left over from another project and decided to scale down the seasonings that you listed. Thanks for listing them in grams because measuring by weight is SO much easier to scale vs volume. I mixed it up and pan fried some patties. Your recipe is definitely headed in the right direction but it's hard to tell the nuance without the bloom and additional smoke. I used a cherry smoked salt (because that is the only smoked salt I had on hand) for a quick taste test and left out the pink salt. I don't get the cure taste so I'm not sure that they included it. I think it might be missing a "twang", maybe a little citric acid? I'm not sure that the heat comes from cayenne pepper - it might come from a heavier dose of black pepper.

Again, I think you and your wife have created an excellent starting point. I could not have done that or I would have.

 

[river100]

Thanks J Jasbeth for the recipe, going to make some soon.

RG

Where is this recipe from Jasbeth? Is it for Conuch sausage ? I would love to try it.

 

[Jasbeth]

Where is this recipe from Jasbeth? Is it for Conuch sausage ? I would love to try it.

River, My account was suspended and all of my post removed because I posted a link to grommets for temperature probes. My account is active again but guessing all of my post are permanently deleted. I lost the hard drive on my old computer which had ALL of my recipes including all attempts at Conecuh sauasage. I have ask them to put the post that had recipes back on but do not have a reply yet. I would like my recipes back also. I have 1 attempt that I wrote down, let me go through it and see if I can remember the changes we made on the final batch. I'll message you and let you know.

 

[Tejasmoke]

Jasbeth, sometime ago I made note of your recipe and actually made a link of it a couple of days ago. I'm not going to sample it until next weekend when some friends come to visit. I used 60% pork butt, 20% venison, and 20% wild hog. I believe I scaled your original recipe down to 1 lb. (454g). Take a look at the following and see if it looks right.

Cure - 1.1g Mustard powder - 1g
Smoked salt - 5.65g. Karo light syrup - 5.65g
Black pepper - 2.9g. I added 10% liquid in the form of beer
Cayenne pepper - 1.5g
Garlic powder - 2g
Fine ground sage - .15g
Thyme - .15g
Marjoram - .16g
Ground clove - .15g
Smoked paprika - .15g

 

[Tejasmoke]

Jasbeth, sometime ago I made note of your recipe and actually made a link of it a couple of days ago. I'm not going to sample it until next weekend when some friends come to visit. I used 60% pork butt, 20% venison, and 20% wild hog. I believe I scaled your original recipe down to 1 lb. (454g). Take a look at the following and see if it looks right.

Cure - 1.1g Mustard powder - 1g
Smoked salt - 5.65g. Karo light syrup - 5.65g
Black pepper - 2.9g. I added 10% liquid in the form of beer
Cayenne pepper - 1.5g
Garlic powder - 2g
Fine ground sage - .15g
Thyme - .15g
Marjoram - .16g
Ground clove - .15g
Smoked paprika - .15g

My first post and it looks like I screwed it up! I didn't intend for the recipe list to look like that. Sorry about that.

 

[river100]

River, My account was suspended and all of my post removed because I posted a link to grommets for temperature probes. My account is active again but guessing all of my post are permanently deleted. I lost the hard drive on my old computer which had ALL of my recipes including all attempts at Conecuh sauasage. I have ask them to put the post that had recipes back on but do not have a reply yet. I would like my recipes back also. I have 1 attempt that I wrote down, let me go through it and see if I can remember the changes we made on the final batch. I'll message you and let you know.

Thanks

 

[Jasbeth]

Thanks

River, look at post #55...from tejasmoke...that is the recipe I posted..his measurements are for 1 pound. The way he broke it down is perfect, if you are doing 10lbs just multiply those numbers by 10. My mix is 70/30 pork shoulder or pork butt. Read through the last few post, others have some good ideas about tweaking that recipe. We haven't made any because I just really didn't want to start over after I lost that last hard drive. BTW, coarse ground on the meat, run it twice if you like, depends on the look. A fine grind is just too much. Now that I have that recipe back I'll be running a batch soon, sure we will change something. Also headed to Alabama in 2 weeks to get some, try to narrow it down. I will post all changes and message you to let you know. BTW, big thanks to tejasmoke for saving that!

 

[Jasbeth]

My first post and it looks like I screwed it up! I didn't intend for the recipe list to look like that. Sorry about that.

I do believe that's it...thank you sir!! I wasn't even going to attempt it again after losing that. Check out a few of the other post to see what tweaking they think it needs. I do know that Conecuh gets their spice from 3 different vendors and no vendor knows what the others do...it closely guarded, like KFC I guess..lol. I have spoke to employees who say they dump the bags into the mix but have no idea what is in them. I am from Alabama, maybe 30 minutes from Evergreen, Alabama but absolutely no one I have ever known that works there knows a dang thing about the flavors..

 

[Tejasmoke]

I do believe that's it...thank you sir!! I wasn't even going to attempt it again after losing that. Check out a few of the other post to see what tweaking they think it needs. I do know that Conecuh gets their spice from 3 different vendors and no vendor knows what the others do...it closely guarded, like KFC I guess..lol. I have spoke to employees who say they dump the bags into the mix but have no idea what is in them. I am from Alabama, maybe 30 minutes from Evergreen, Alabama but absolutely no one I have ever known that works there knows a dang thing about the flavors..

Glad to help. I've had the recipe on my phone for a good while and was wanting to verify the numbers one more time before making it, but I couldn't find your post. I thought I was mistaken about where I had seen it. I guess we should forego any discussion pertaining to grommets! I can't wait to try the sausage next week. Unfortunately, I've never had any Conecuh, so I won't be any help in determining it's faithfulness to the original, but I will share my general thoughts on it.

 

[river100]

River, look at post #55...from tejasmoke...that is the recipe I posted..his measurements are for 1 pound. The way he broke it down is perfect, if you are doing 10lbs just multiply those numbers by 10. My mix is 70/30 pork shoulder or pork butt. Read through the last few post, others have some good ideas about tweaking that recipe. We haven't made any because I just really didn't want to start over after I lost that last hard drive. BTW, coarse ground on the meat, run it twice if you like, depends on the look. A fine grind is just too much. Now that I have that recipe back I'll be running a batch soon, sure we will change something. Also headed to Alabama in 2 weeks to get some, try to narrow it down. I will post all changes and message you to let you know. BTW, big thanks to tejasmoke for saving that!

Thanks, I copied it and put in my sausage recipe folder.
might try it soon when I get my smoker back on line for sausage.