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Obviously, I never got around to making the first sausage on the list, due to many factors....until this past weekend!
It's for 40 pounds, so instead of trying to get some weird ratio of ground beef to ground pork and wrapping my head around a lot of conversions, why not just drop some zeros?
So, with that in mind, I set out to make the sausage scaled down to 10% of the original; now, instead of waiting four years to get everything together and be sure that I'm doing it right, I went from getting the ingredients to tasting the final project in four days.
For the sake of convenience, here is the original recipe, as given:
What I decided to do is to reduce the amount down to 4 pounds; I also wanted to smoke it, so I used a curing agent rather than salt alone.
My curing agent is Tender Quick, and I knew through experience that 1.5 teaspoons per pound of ground meat is just right for curing sausage; however, at least 1/4 teaspoon of salt per pound needs to be added, for taste. More on this, later.
Using those givens, plus a little leeway in reducing the other ingredients, I came up with these measurements:
It looks very close and seemed to be in-line with the intent of the original, so I went ahead and gave this a try, with a couple of variations:
I used dark brown sugar, rather than light.
It is always a good practice to dissolve the spices and cure into some sort of liquid, so as to evenly distribute the flavours and the cure. For this project, I used 1 bottle's worth of "Salmon Fly Honey Rye" ale, from Madison River Brewing Company:
https://madisonriverbrewing.com/ourb...-fly-honey-rye
It was at about this time that I finally acknowledged the fact that we were in the 20s and 30s below zero (F), not counting wind chill factors, which drove the temperatures down another 20 degrees or more...and I really didn't want to deal with it. Because of this, I said to hell with smoking the sausage and added 1 teaspoon of Wright's Liquid Smoke per pound of meat (4 teaspoons total).
Don't judge me!
I mixed and kneaded the sausage for 10 minutes with a hand-held potato masher, until it stiffened up nicely. I then covered it with a layer of plastic wrap pressed down on the sausage, put a lid on the bowl and set it in the refrigerator over-night.
The next day, I finished this up. At first, I didn't want to mess with casings and planned on simply rolling the sausage into a few logs inside Saran Wrap or aluminum foil, then heating in the oven at about 200 degrees (poking holes in the foil or Saran Wrap to let excess moisture out) until the internal temperature of the sausage was 153-ish. I even got to thinking that the foil or saran wrap wouldn't be necessary, either - except perhaps for ensuring a tight roll on the logs. In the end, however, I had another idea, thanks to some consultation with our own Mad Hunky, RichTee, who reminded me that poaching the sausage in 160-degree-ish water would do a more uniform job of bringing the sausage to temperature. At about the same time, I also remembered that I have this sausage kit, from the makers of my Little Chief Smoker:
It is rudimentary, to be sure, but it is easy to use for forming the sausage into nice, uniform logs or chubs. It is efficient and gets the job done...and it's perfect for small projects such as this. I have used it before with great success.
The casings that come with this kit (as well as the forming tube itself) each hold 2/3 of a pound of sausage; I ended up with 7 chubs by the time I was done. I tied them up tightly and then poached them in water that I maintained at about 160 degrees until they floated. After that, I dropped them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. I then hung them up in a cool area with good airflow so that they can "bloom" and firm up a bit.
I gave one chub of sausage to my #2 son, one to my #4 son and one to my dad; I'll also give one to a family friend who often shares his pickles, sausages and other projects with me. The rest will be saved for snacking on evenings when we are playing cards or socializing, which is exactly what we did last night with the one that I gave to my dad. The sausage was good, well-formed and had nice flavour; my only criticism is that there didn't seem to be any salt flavour at all, so I might increase the addition of salt from 1/4 teaspoon per pound to 1/2 teaspoon per pound next time, then see how it turns out. The other flavours in the sausage were very nice, on point and in great proportion. The beer seemed like a nice addition as well. The texture of the sausage was just fine; it was moist and held together well, with no need for fillers, binders or other similar additives.
In all, my adaptation and scaling down of the original recipe seemed to go very well and I was glad to have finally made this. I highly recommend this sausage - fresh or smoked; just be sure to add a curing agent of your choice if you smoke it, per package directions, and adjust the salt from the original recipe as necessary.
Enjoy!
Ron
It's for 40 pounds, so instead of trying to get some weird ratio of ground beef to ground pork and wrapping my head around a lot of conversions, why not just drop some zeros?
So, with that in mind, I set out to make the sausage scaled down to 10% of the original; now, instead of waiting four years to get everything together and be sure that I'm doing it right, I went from getting the ingredients to tasting the final project in four days.
For the sake of convenience, here is the original recipe, as given:
William Brethauer's German Sausage Recipe
3/4 cup salt
1/2 cup black pepper
1/2 of a 1.25 oz. bottle of garlic powder
30 lbs. of ground pork
10 lbs of ground beef
1 cup brown sugar (optional)
3/4 cup salt
1/2 cup black pepper
1/2 of a 1.25 oz. bottle of garlic powder
30 lbs. of ground pork
10 lbs of ground beef
1 cup brown sugar (optional)
My curing agent is Tender Quick, and I knew through experience that 1.5 teaspoons per pound of ground meat is just right for curing sausage; however, at least 1/4 teaspoon of salt per pound needs to be added, for taste. More on this, later.
Using those givens, plus a little leeway in reducing the other ingredients, I came up with these measurements:
Ron's adaptation of Brethauer's German Sausage
3 pounds ground pork
1 pound ground beef
6 teaspoons TQ
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of granulated garlic
Scant 2.5 teaspoons freshly-ground black pepper
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons brown sugar
3 pounds ground pork
1 pound ground beef
6 teaspoons TQ
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of granulated garlic
Scant 2.5 teaspoons freshly-ground black pepper
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons brown sugar
I used dark brown sugar, rather than light.
It is always a good practice to dissolve the spices and cure into some sort of liquid, so as to evenly distribute the flavours and the cure. For this project, I used 1 bottle's worth of "Salmon Fly Honey Rye" ale, from Madison River Brewing Company:
https://madisonriverbrewing.com/ourb...-fly-honey-rye
It was at about this time that I finally acknowledged the fact that we were in the 20s and 30s below zero (F), not counting wind chill factors, which drove the temperatures down another 20 degrees or more...and I really didn't want to deal with it. Because of this, I said to hell with smoking the sausage and added 1 teaspoon of Wright's Liquid Smoke per pound of meat (4 teaspoons total).
Don't judge me!
I mixed and kneaded the sausage for 10 minutes with a hand-held potato masher, until it stiffened up nicely. I then covered it with a layer of plastic wrap pressed down on the sausage, put a lid on the bowl and set it in the refrigerator over-night.
The next day, I finished this up. At first, I didn't want to mess with casings and planned on simply rolling the sausage into a few logs inside Saran Wrap or aluminum foil, then heating in the oven at about 200 degrees (poking holes in the foil or Saran Wrap to let excess moisture out) until the internal temperature of the sausage was 153-ish. I even got to thinking that the foil or saran wrap wouldn't be necessary, either - except perhaps for ensuring a tight roll on the logs. In the end, however, I had another idea, thanks to some consultation with our own Mad Hunky, RichTee, who reminded me that poaching the sausage in 160-degree-ish water would do a more uniform job of bringing the sausage to temperature. At about the same time, I also remembered that I have this sausage kit, from the makers of my Little Chief Smoker:
It is rudimentary, to be sure, but it is easy to use for forming the sausage into nice, uniform logs or chubs. It is efficient and gets the job done...and it's perfect for small projects such as this. I have used it before with great success.
The casings that come with this kit (as well as the forming tube itself) each hold 2/3 of a pound of sausage; I ended up with 7 chubs by the time I was done. I tied them up tightly and then poached them in water that I maintained at about 160 degrees until they floated. After that, I dropped them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. I then hung them up in a cool area with good airflow so that they can "bloom" and firm up a bit.
I gave one chub of sausage to my #2 son, one to my #4 son and one to my dad; I'll also give one to a family friend who often shares his pickles, sausages and other projects with me. The rest will be saved for snacking on evenings when we are playing cards or socializing, which is exactly what we did last night with the one that I gave to my dad. The sausage was good, well-formed and had nice flavour; my only criticism is that there didn't seem to be any salt flavour at all, so I might increase the addition of salt from 1/4 teaspoon per pound to 1/2 teaspoon per pound next time, then see how it turns out. The other flavours in the sausage were very nice, on point and in great proportion. The beer seemed like a nice addition as well. The texture of the sausage was just fine; it was moist and held together well, with no need for fillers, binders or other similar additives.
In all, my adaptation and scaling down of the original recipe seemed to go very well and I was glad to have finally made this. I highly recommend this sausage - fresh or smoked; just be sure to add a curing agent of your choice if you smoke it, per package directions, and adjust the salt from the original recipe as necessary.
Enjoy!
Ron
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