Sausage Makers - How fine do you grind?

[gtr]

Just curious to see what others are doing and why.

I grind with a KA mixer attachment. Lately I just grind through the coarse plate once, which seems to give a decent texture. I do this for both bulk and link sausage.

So what do y'all do, and do you do the same for bulk and link?

[chad]

It depends on the sausage, but most get coarse grind. I use a KA for grinding, too. the important thing is that you like it.

[Swamp Donkeyz BBQ]

I grind my regular sausage pretty coarse.


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[BobBrisket]

I only grind it once and that's a course grind.

[Brother Matt]

Depends on the sausage for me. I do try to only grind once, regardless of size, otherwise it starts to turn into paste. For loose sausage like breakfast I like the fine plate, which on my machine is 3/16". For brats and other cased sausages I typically run the coarse plate, which is 3/8". I just did a big run of breakfast sausage and used Alton Brown's recipe. It looks pretty strange at first blush, but it is the best breakfast sausage I've made yet.

[cholloway]

Coarse. Especially chili meat but includes hamburger, ground beef or pork and sausage. I did modify the fine plate to open the sides for sausages that have rice in it. I don't like the rice ground up much.

[GARNAAL]

for hotdogs and typical emulsified sausages you use a fine plate 1/8 to 3/16 inch (grind 1x or 2x) or you can even grind the meats in a kitchen machine with a rotating knife until you get a fine emulsified paste..

for Salami types and typical cured/air dried sausages you use the larger plates , 3/8 inch or 10 mm.. and make sure you partly freeze the meat and fat to get a nice clean and rougher cut without smearing the paste ...

for our hamburgers and gyros I grind with the 3/8 inch plate..

[boatnut]

for sausage, I mostly use the 6mm plate which is close to 1/4" holes.

[GARNAAL]

for hotdogs and typical emulsified sausages you use a fine plate 1/8 to 3/16 inch (grind 1x or 2x) or you can even grind the meats in a kitchen machine with a rotating knife until you get a fine emulsified paste..

for Salami types and typical cured/air dried sausages you use the larger plates up to 3/8 inch or 10 mm.. and make sure you partly freeze the meat and fat to get a nice clean and rougher cut without smearing the paste ...

for our hamburgers and gyros I use the 3/8 inch plate..

[bigabyte]

I use a KA grinder, and in most cases just a coarse grind is what I want. If I want the sausage to be a smoother then I run it again through the fine plate. It's generally a judgement call as I'm making the sausage as to what texture I want, but it's not all that often that I run it through twice Most of the kinds of sausage I make are meant to be coarse.

[Wallaby]

I use a coarse grind for breakfast sausage, but fine for pepperoni, summer sausage, baloney.

Mike

[The_Kapn]

Coarse grind for sausage and ground beef.
By the time I "handle" it some for further processing, it is effectively smaller.
Works for me.

TIM

[BobBrisket]

Originally Posted by The_Kapn

Coarse grind for sausage and ground beef.
By the time I "handle" it some for further processing, it is effectively smaller.
Works for me.

TIM

True. If you do some more hand mixing to it, it breaks the grind down even further.

[IamMadMan]

For smoked Kielbasa I use an 8mm or a 10mm plate

for other fresh sausages or summer sausage I use a 6mm plate

For Mortadella, Bologna, and frankfurters I use a 3mm Plate grind twice then emulsify with crushed ice before stuffing.

[DougMorford]

I do a course grind for fresh sausage. If I'm adding fat, I'll grind that by itself first, then mix it up into the cubed meat and seasoning. I pre-grind the fat so it's more continuous throughout the sausage. I don't like the texture as much if it's ground more than once.