My first sausage attempt

[mjdeez]

My first time making sausage. I have a couple of good books on sausage, and I picked a few recipes for fresh sausage from Warren R. Anderson's book Mastering the Craft of Making Sausage.  One was bockwurst, one bratwurst, and classic breakfast sausage.  I bought a picnic ham on sale and cut it into slabs and ground it down. It was my first time using my grinder, the Cabelas "Pro" model. Not very pro at all but it worked well enough, just not really fast. These recipes were all in 2.5 lb batches and I didn't want to do too much of something in case I didn't like it, so I left it at 2.5 lbs and didn't bother stuffing.

A bit of background on these sausages.
Breakfast sausage is pretty standard. I used fresh sage, and it is a bit strong, so I cut that down by half. The sausage ended up being very mild and I will kick it up w/ something when I defrost it. Not sure what yet.

Bockwurst (also called white sausage in the US) is made with about 2/3 pork, 1/3 veal (traditional) or poultry.  I used pork + ground turkey thighs, plus some trimmings from a brisket pastrami I had started curing earlier in the week. This had some cure flavor on it because I didn't trim it first, so I'm sure it changed the flavor of the sausage a bit. Other ingredients include salt / pepper / onion granules / parsley / celery seed / mace / corn syrup / eggs / milk green onions / powered milk.  This sausage was amazing. I couldn't believe how good it was.

Bratwurst I've had many times, but never home made, and it was much different than I've tasted before. I also used some ground turkey / brisket trimmings along w/ the pork, instead of the traditional pork + veal.  Ingredients include dry mustard, pepper / salt / garlic / nutmeg / sage / water / eggs / milk / corn syrup. I used a lot of fresh ingredients / spices so this was really flavorful also.

The meat



Bockwurst:


Braturst:


Cooking the bockwurst... we had it for breakfast this morning.  It burned kind of easily. I need to cook it on a lower heat and keep it covered. At one point the top was fine, the bottom started to burn, so i flipped it and turned the heat down... then within 30 seconds the other side was burning.



All in all, a good experience. Next time I'll just pick one sausage recipe, and not have so many other things going at the same time. Too much to worry about.

[marauder11]

When you ground up your meat was it semi frozen. Works good that way. Looks good thou

[NePaSmoKer]

MMMMMMM


Looks good....Nice job

[mjdeez]

When you ground up your meat was it semi frozen. Works good that way. Looks good thou

I had the big bowl of slabs, and eventually cubes in the freezer for a bit, but as you'd expect only the outer part got semi frozen. Maybe that was the problem. It kept gunking up on the bottom half behind the grinding plate, so I had to open it up every now and then and clean up the plate and blade.

I ground 3/8" first, then a smaller one, maybe 3/16" or 1/8", I don't remember.  I remember reading somewhere that it's good to start out with coarse grind first then a finer grind. I mixed all ingredients after the second grind for each of the sausages. One of the 3 recipes actually called for a 3/8" grind but I wanted to work with 1 batch of meat.

MMMMMMM


Looks good....Nice job

Thanks! I really can't wait to make the bockwurst again. Even though I have a about 2lbs left, portioned, and frozen, I want to make more and also stuff it.

NePas, let me ask you... what kind of sausage / casing size combination would require the most strength to crank a stuffer? I want to build a motor attachment for my Weston 11lb, but I need to size the motor. I was thinking of making a sausage that would require more strength than usual, and then use a torque wrench to figure out required torque for the motor.

[NePaSmoKer]

If your going to use natural casings i would go with hog 32-36mm.

Collagen 32-33mm or for sticks 19mm

[classicrockgriller]

Don't you just love it!

Looks like a good start.

[pikeman_95]

Looking at your ground meat my opinion is it is emulsified rather then ground. Looking up your pro grinder you might have a problem getting a good grind with this machine. Some of the less expensive machines do not have a good auger to body tolerance to force the meat through the grinding plate on the first pass. The auger emulsifies the meat before it is forced through the cutting plate. There are a few things that you can do to improve the performance. First put some Vaseline on the back of the auger where it rubs so that it does not get hot. Now tighten the front end very tight when you are grinding. This will help the blade cut. Next like marauder11 said freeze the meat and grind it as it is just thawing out. Last use the larger plates to grind with and only grind it once.

[mjdeez]

If your going to use natural casings i would go with hog 32-36mm.

Collagen 32-33mm or for sticks 19mm

Thanks NePas, I will try it.

Don't you just love it!

Looks like a good start.

Thanks. Yeah it was a lot of fun. Next time I'll make a larger batch and use my stuffer. National Corndog Day is coming up so maybe I'll make some homemade hotdogs / corndogs. http://www.corndogday.com/

Looking at your ground meat my opinion is it is emulsified rather then ground. Looking up your pro grinder you might have a problem getting a good grind with this machine. Some of the less expensive machines do not have a good auger to body tolerance to force the meat through the grinding plate on the first pass. The auger emulsifies the meat before it is forced through the cutting plate. There are a few things that you can do to improve the performance. First put some Vaseline on the back of the auger where it rubs so that it does not get hot. Now tighten the front end very tight when you are grinding. This will help the blade cut. Next like marauder11 said freeze the meat and grind it as it is just thawing out. Last use the larger plates to grind with and only grind it once.

Some of it ground really well, especially the first grind. Some of it, especially towards the end when the bottom of plate was getting gunked up, wasn't quite as nice. But it all went through 2 grinds, then I mixed it with the dry seasonings plus whatever wet ingredients including eggs, all hand mixed. It looked like pretty standard ground meat until the mixing process.  A really good example of this (I don't have a picture) was about 2lb of the loin, and it was some beautiful single 3/16" grind.

But your points are well taken. I had the grinder in the cold garage for awhile before grinding. I've read that some people keep some of the parts (auger / plate, etc) in the freezer for storage. This makes sense if you use it enough I guess. I will try the vaseline, and I think you're right that the 3/8" plates would do just fine. And now that I think of it, i only hand tightened the front end. It seemed pretty tight but I can use the supplied wrench.

[pikeman_95]

I have a friend that has the best grinder Cabalas makes and had a problem with the back end of the grinder auger getting hot. I mean like cook the meat hot. Once he stareted lubing the back end the problem was solved. I would think that your 1/4 inch plate would work well for most of your sausage. If you like a vary course sausage the go with the 3/8 inch plate.

[mjdeez]

I have a friend that has the best grinder Cabalas makes and had a problem with the back end of the grinder auger getting hot. I mean like cook the meat hot. Once he stareted lubing the back end the problem was solved. I would think that your 1/4 inch plate would work well for most of your sausage. If you like a vary course sausage the go with the 3/8 inch plate.

The plates are 3mm, 4.5mm, and 8mm, which is around (but slightly less than) 1/8", 3/16", and 3/8".  I don't suppose I'd mind the coarse sausage, but I was planning on trying to buy a 1/4" if I could. Not sure if this is a standard size.  If you mean the 3/16" plate that may work ok. I had used this for the lean pork and it was ok but a little slow. Then again, it may have been a little more difficult if it were fatty. Thanks for the tip on vaseline. I didn't check to see how hot the auger was when I was done.

[pikeman_95]

I use my 3/16 plate much of the time and I am happy with it. My grinder cuts clean but I have had some grinders that didn't. The cold meat trick will help on the fat also. I feel the 1/4 inch plate is about as coarse as I like.