Honey Garlic

[micman]

I have my own bee's and they produced a fair bit of honey. I am wanting to make some honey garlic sausage and having not so good luck finding a recipe, so if anyone can help me, it would greatly appreciated.

Mick

[Tenpoint5]

Mick sounds to me like it may be time for you to go into as I like to call it "Mad Scientist" Mode. You will probably need to do some experimenting with a tried and true Garlic sausage recipe and then start adding Honey until you get the taste that your looking for. I have made the recipe below several times and it is a Awesome garlic sausage recipe. It should give you a starting place to start experimenting. Have fun and let us know how it turns out and what your final recipe is.

Fresh Garlic Sausage


5 lb      Pork
1 Cup   Wine, White, Dry
5 tsp    Salt
2 Tbs    Garlic, Fresh minced (Increase or Decrease as desired!)
2 tsp    Sugar
2 tsp    Onion Powder
1 ½ tsp  Pepper, Black
¾ tsp     Coriander, ground
¾ tsp     Nutmeg, ground
32mm   Hog casings

1.   Cut the meat into 2 inch pieces and partially freeze.
2.   Grind pork with 3/8" (10mm) holes.
3.   Combine the meat with the salt, and the remaining ingredients.
4.   Stuff the casing loosely; DO NOT overfill the casings.
5.   Twist the sausage casing into 5-6" long sausages.
6.   Puncture any visible air bubbles with a sharp needle.
7.   Allow to air dry at room temperature for several hours.
8.   Refrigerate for up to 4 days or vacuum pack and freeze.

[jiggerjams]

Your own supply of honey? That would be nice to have. I like Chris's approach. It sounds simple and tasty.

[devo]

If you follow this link there is some good info on adding honey to sausage. Seems you have to be carefull on the amount you use as it can cause nasty problems, honey is a great bacterial host so they say on that web site.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=286&sid=d79b12a67d12a215e7ab4470d26e2961

[micman]

Tenpoint I guess I should have mentioned I wanted to smoke it also, so do I smoke the same as other sausage, and I guess I need to add 1 tsp of prauge #1 to the recipe also.

Mick

[Habanero Smoker]

Tenpoint I guess I should have mentioned I wanted to smoke it also, so do I smoke the same as other sausage, and I guess I need to add 1 tsp of prauge #1 to the recipe also.

Mick

Yes! Add one teaspoon of prauge #1, but also reduce the salt to 4 teaspoons.

[Tenpoint5]

Habs got here before I did. Follow his suggestion and keep us updated.  A 5 pound batch should give you about 17-20 sausage links just to give you a reference to fall on

[micman]

Thanks guys,I just got off night shift am gonna have a little sleep and then I will get to it. I will keep you posted as I go.

Mick

[micman]

Well tenpoint, I built my sausages, the little bit left over, fried in a pan for a taste test. First of all I added some extra garlic,wowwee, definitely will keep the vampires away, has a strong wine taste( snuck a cup of my wife's Pinot Grigio),( I'm a beer and rum drinker :) and a cup of my backyard honey makes it a little sweeter then I would like. This is all out of the frying pan thou.... Sausage is in the fridge and stuffed, will start smoking first thing in the morning.

A buddy was over for Happy Hour when I was stuffing and he was trying to take it home, Will update as soon as its outta the smoker.
Sperimenting I believe will always bring different but good results.

Mick

[devo]

Well tenpoint, I built my sausages, the little bit left over, fried in a pan for a taste test. First of all I added some extra garlic,wowwee, definitely will keep the vampires away, has a strong wine taste( snuck a cup of my wife's Pinot Grigio),( I'm a beer and rum drinker :) and a cup of my backyard honey makes it a little sweeter then I would like. This is all out of the frying pan thou.... Sausage is in the fridge and stuffed, will start smoking first thing in the morning.

A buddy was over for Happy Hour when I was stuffing and he was trying to take it home, Will update as soon as its outta the smoker.
Sperimenting I believe will always bring different but good results.

Mick

There is a discussion going on at another forum I belong to about adding wine. It is over my head but here is a copy & paste about what they say.

Dr. Lynn Knipe of the Meat Research Center at the Iowa State University has written articles pertaining to the proteins and exudates of meat. One of his best describes the "unraveling" of proteins. Without going into full detail, would you allow me to point out that the addition of wine in the meat mixture all at once, may indeed be compared to the addition of oil to eggs while crafting mayonnaise? If the oil is added too quickly, it will "break" the emulsion and the texture will suffer. The same concept applies when adding wine to meat in which the actomyocin has been partially or fully developed. If added all at once, it will denature the proteins like crazy!
If I may make a suggestion, place the wine into an atomizer and spray it into the mixture as you begin to develop the myocin proteins mechanically. In other words, add it more gradually by spraying it.
Actin and myosin belong to the contractile proteins of the myofibrils in meat musculature. The protein actin accounts for only about 20 percent of muscle protein. Myosin filaments represent about 40% of muscular proteins. As a result of association with actin, myosin forms actomyosin - responsible for muscular contraction in live animals. When mechanically agitated in comminuted meat, actomyosin proteins produce a sticky mass – an essential feature in good sausage.

You may also wish to try another ol' timer's trick. Most of the real pros that I know, bake their garlic before adding it to the mixture. The most popular proportion is 80% pre-baked with 20% raw crushed garlic. Baking it is easy. Just wrap entire "head" of garlic in foil and pop them into a 335°F oven until the garlic becomes pliable enough to be squeezed out of their paper cloves. This takes the raw bitter edge off the stuff and tastes wonderful in sausage.
Why not give these two tricks a try when you make your next batch and then compare the results. I think you'll taste and see a difference.

So there you have it, I couldn't say if its true or not just passing some info along.

[Tenpoint5]

Mick That's because your stealing Momma's High dollar drinking wine. I use the cheap stuff!! ;D ;D As for the the Garlic taste. Well It is called a GARLIC Sausage isn't it?? ;D ;D

This will be interesting to follow though. I have thought about it but just never got off my butt and added the cure #1 to this recipe. After the fresh sits for awhile in the freezer Vac Sealed the flavors really meld together nicely. Hopefully you took some picks before your buddy took it all home!

[micman]

Well the bad news /good news scenario. Sausages were stuffed and put in the fridge over night, next morning preheated the smoker and went to put sausages in the smoker, and well no preheat, element went on holidays, tim-buck too maybe,not quite sure. So I put the sausages on a cold smoke for three hours. While they were smoking I phoned Bradley and talked to a sales rep, we ran a few test and determined the element did go on holidays, rep wasn't sure herself where it went but she said it had gone, so the gist is they were sending me a replacement and I bought a spare just in case my element decides to take another holiday right in the middle of a smokin job.
Know for the kinda good news after the sausage came out of the smoker I put the sausage into a water bath and let them stay there until the IT hit 152.
Now this is were it gets a bit icky, they absolutely tasted terrible, way to strong of a wine taste(oh ya did I mention I was a beer drinker..... hmmmm...) so into a paper bag and into the fridge for two days.
So back to work I go, and take a ring with me. Never said much just threw it on the table, waited for the vultures to circle and chow down. Well to my dismay I was getting rave reviews, what great flavors, this is really good, whats in it. How much did you make. Hey is that your own honey in it.
So just to let you know I work with a bunch of weirdo's, so was a little skeptical of the comments, so I had to have a taste, and well and behold it wasn't all that bad now that it had a couple days to bloom in the fridge.

Morale of the story " things do beauty with age"

So what I did
followed the recipe, added 1 cup of my back yard honey, an extra teaspoon of minced garlic.
Thought it was a little sweet so next time I will drop the two tsp of sugar and try half cup wine and half cup cold water mix.
I also believe if I could have got a hotter smoke then 86 degrees, the overall flavor and texture would have been better.
My next four days off I think I will try it again with the adjustments. Well that's as soon as my element arrives(should be Wednesday).
Will keep you posted.

Mick