Sausage making - specifically hot italian

You might want to checkout AlliedKenco.com for all of your meat processing needs.

I am not sure if this is a post for help on sausage making or the tools, but you can check out good eats, Alton has a very nicce episode on making sausage. The rest is following the recipe.

Careful - if you start grinding you own meat for sausage, burgers, meatballs and such you may find eating most of the prepared store bought stuff to be less than satisfying.

For pork based sausages a shoulder butt roast is about right for the fat to lean ratio. When it comes to beef, a chunk of chuck is a good bet. A general guideline is about 20 - 30 percent fat in the mix. When making breakfast sage sausage I usually add a few strips of bacon or some chunks of salt pork to the grind. For hamburger I use about 2/3 chuck and 1/3 sirloin or round, sometimes tri-tip.

Oddly enough I don't recall making hot italian in the last few years. There's this place in Utah called Colissimo's that sells some really good stuff. I usually just buy that for italian. This summer I plan to work on an all beef Texas style smoked hot link, can't find a good example of that locally.

The blade in my grinder is getting dull, maybe it is time to buy a new blade or just get a whole new bigger unit.

mjb.

What I found in making my own italian sausage was that it took far more spices than most recipes called for. Make the recipe. Cook a small pinch of it and taste. Adjust spices as you deem necessary and repeat the process as needed to achieve your desired results.

Murph! if you make try adding the herbs and spices and specially hot pepper in liquid form as it mixes better with the meat and does not form overspiced spots. I notice other then anise this is the way commercial guys are doing it now.:bounce:

Portable Generators, Pressure Washers, Heaters, Hand + Power Tools | Northern Tool + Equipment has a grinder for around $100 and a 5 pound sausage stuffer for $90 or so that get good reviews on the BBQ forum I read. I have been thinking aout picking them up myself because of the lack of decent sausage around here.

The stuffing attachment also grinds the sausage a second time so be prepared for finer than you want sausage at times.

Yep! I've just recently started grinding my own ground beef. Much like everything else I don't suspect I'll be able to buy regular store bought ground beef again :( Add that to the list I suppose ;)


RPM, the KitchenAid is adequate for small amounts of grinding or sausages. But if your doing anything larger in production you'll probably want to move to something else in the future.

Have fun!

dan

Murph Go into ,,Ask the meatman.com >> They sell all the seasonings you might need and they feature Witts which is a well trusted brand.

There should be a spacer bar to take the place of the plate and blade so there is no extra grinding. Mine has one anyway.

Cifelli Sausage

Cifelli's sausage is sold at Foodtown in South Amboy. Its sweet sausage is as good as any Italian pork stores. Their hot sausage is usually too hot.

Aidell's sausage book is quite good. The CIA has a garde manger book that's worthwhile too. Helen Witty makes has some good sausage recipes and lots of other pantry goodies in The Good Stuff Cookbook.

Phil

RPM,

It's in your PM box. I saved it for some strange reason when I cleaned the PM box last week.....now I know why.:D

Thought I did a follow up but that I didn't keep....I don't think I did but just in case I didn't........ Coarse twice.

It's not the same as the fine plate once as some have tried to tell me over the years. The idea is to get the fat that remains to be cut smaller but not mushed into the meat. The coarse twice also yields a nicer texture meat more reminiscent to home made stuff. The fine plate makes it like ground beef and frankly, sausage is or was a treat in my upbringing. This really set it apart. when making patties or mixing in with sauce. Unfortunatel, my Mother never stuffed casings. That was something my Grandmother did and I believe the twice coarse made a better cased sausage as well.

A tip

Various membranes and tissues build up on the blade as you grind. Every 2 or 3 pounds, stop and disassemble to clean out the build up. It keeps the process much easier and the grind consistent.

Oh yeah the sausage casings??????

Be careful of tangles and knots when working with them attached to the ring. Rinse them thoroughly in cold water (open one end of the amount you think you will need (this is a real guestimate.hehehe) and run water through the inside as well. Then let soak in cold water for 15-20 minutes. Draining 2-3 times over that period. Believe me when I tell you.... you don't want to under-estimate the saltiness if you don't rinse them well. Not good!

It's a good idea to keep the casing wet while on the stuffing tube. They can stick or bind on the plastic while you are filling them.. Also go slow and be sure to fill the casing well. It works well to hold the casing firmly and offer some resistance to it just running off. Keep the mixer on speed 2-3 and work the casing back and forth, up and down and around to fill. You'll feel the meat fill and stretch the casing. You'll also get the feel of the point that there is tto much but the casing usually splits. No problem, just remove some of the sausage around the break so that it seals back up on what is done, cut the casing and start over.

Don't tie your ends. This is to work some of the air out after you are done.

There is a real trick to making links and one that I really can't explain well without demonstrating but....I'll give it a shot.

For the first link, work the air out of the filled sausage and pich an area where you want to make the link. The end is still untied so you may have to work the pressure of the filling back towards it. Just twist 3-4 times, clockwise, for the first link. Stretch the filled casing out and make the area of the next link a bit narrower then pinch. You need to make it narrower to keep the casing from splitting when you pinch. While holding on to the first link, and the beginning of the third link, spin the second link counter clockwise like your holding a jump-rope between your hands. Follow the same procedure down the line alternating back and forth from clockwise to counter clockwise until you have mad all your links.


Actually after the first 10 it gets really quick and easy and it has too. Especially if you have to get 400lbs of the stuff done up in time for opening but that's a different story........;)

Hoep this is not only helpful but more so, you can understand it.:blush:

Looks good. How are the air pockets? Those are tricky to eliminate during stuffing and big ones can burst your sausage.

Ahhh life is good when RPMc post pictures. You have made my day again.

Nice job RPM. Looked really good! Pics looked good enough to eat.:look: