First Sausage Run

Finally got around to making some home made sausage. Thank you to Sleebus.Jones for the pointers and detailed instructions.

Sleebus Jones original post.
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242074

My last post.
https://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=266518

Made a 5lbs batch out of pork butt and tri-tip.

Soaked the natural hog casings.


Seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard powder, crushed garlic cure number one, and a little dehydrated milk powder.


mixed the seasoning in with the water.


Tri-tip and pork butt.


Hog casing on a vintage Kitchen Aid grinder. (The tube is new)


Ground with seasoning mixed in.


Stuffed and ready to hit the smoke.


Smoked between 175 and 200 for a couple hours.


I decided to poach one link per Sleebus.Jones instructions and leave one on the smoker for a while longer.


Ice bath.


Both links finished.



Both methods were good but I think I prefer the link that stayed in the smoker the whole time. The poach rinsed a bit of the smoke flavor off.

The seasoning portions was really a crap shoot. My digital scale is not sufficient for this and I will be ordering a new one that reads fractions of grams.

Thanks again for all the input and feedback in my original post a few weeks back.

Matt

sleebus.jones said:

Nice first attempt!! It'll get easier the more times you do it.

Couple of observations:

1. Needed to use mustard seeds, not mustard powder
Was wondering if that made a big difference.

2. I really don't use milk powder, never felt the need, but experimentation is part of the fun!
It was an afterthought. Think I threw a 1/2 teaspoon in at the last min.

3. Did you have a separate ice bath, or did you dump ice into the poaching water? You may have, but hard to tell since it's the same pot. I always use a separate container.
I dumped the hot water and quickly replaced it what an ice bath.

As for washing the smoke off, well, that's the style of the recipe. If you get Polish sausage from someplace like Chicago, you'll find that it's not overly smoky, it's a light smoke. That's not to say that there isn't heavily smoked Polish sausage...some of the styles come out almost black!

So glad you gave it a try!

Click to expand...

This was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. Next time it will be easier. a big part of it was figuring out things like separating and soaking the casing, getting the casing on the stuffer and managing the stuffing process which would have been a lot easier with a couple of extra hands. I had the process down pretty good about mid way through.

Thanks again for the help. You will definitely see a few more batches in the near future.