I've asked questions about fat-smearing, temps, etc..on here before, and I've improved my sausage making a bunch, thanks to y'all advice. This fat-melting problem has me frustrated to no end sometimes so - I stopped by the sausage place in Tulsa yesterday - I bought three brats, just to compare. (th...

I hand-cut the pork shoulder (3lbs), and ground up the wild pig with pork fat added. (4.4 lbs, 76/24 ratio) - The rest was salt, cure, black pepper, cayenne, a very small (.3%) amount of thyme, and a bunch (58g) of fresh minced garlic. This was stuffed into hog casings - I know, it's supposed to be ...

I didn't have any of the fat breakdown in the batch of Hunter Sausages, I was crediting the NFDM with that bit of success, sounds like it may have been my better temp profile? Or could it have helped somewhat? I hand cut some pork shoulder last night, then ground some wild pork mixed with fat. Added...

Having much better success now, thanks to all the advice and topics here! Made some smoked cheese links, 72% deer/wild pig - 28% domestic pork fat. Good sausage, but a bit fatty. Made some smoked Hunter sausage - 80% deer - 20% domestic pork fat. Added NFDM (1.5%) as a binder. Sausage was good, mayb...

Well the knives were needed! We ended up with a buck and a yearling doe. These both are purely for sausage. Deboned them today and got 110 pounds of beautiful meat. Vac packed it all in 15 pound batches so I add 5 pounds of pork trim and fat for a 20 pound batch. One more weekend to go and it will ...

Thanks - I'll look at those.

Here is a link on how to cook the perfect bratwurst. It recommends submerging the sausages in cold water and bringing it up to temp very slowly but he also has a better way. The perfect way. Haven't tried it myself yet but I plan to. Sounds like he has done quite a bit of homework and what he says ...

OK - here's a stupid question (another!) - I preheat my kettle to 175F to cook these in, could that contribute to the problem? Would I be better off to start colder and bring temp up? I wish there was some expert guy in my kitchen pointing out my mistakes and berating me as I go. I wouldn't ruin so ...

The liquid fat/pockets seem to be the biggest problem I have with all my sausages, and always appear during poaching. (whether after smoking or not) I used to pay a processor to make brats during the hunting season - I'd take boneless meat over there, he'd mix with pork/fat, and I'd get back brats, ...

Chuckwagon, what do you expect a sausage that has the "unraveling" of proteins to look like? I had a nice mix, firm, sticky, then added some wine. Mix got "loose" (I thought it was just watered down) - sausages were nothing to brag about.

I may be well off target, but are you cutting your fat into small dice before freezing / mixing with the meat and putting through the mincer? This will help distribute the fat evenly too. Big pieces of fat, though mixed with meat, can/ will still come out in a large strand, where as smaller diced p...

Well, I read an interesting bit on this site last night. Alcohol breaks the protein bonds. My recipe had 1000g lean meat - 387g pork fat, 163ml of wine. The first batch of brats (Saturday) was the first time I'd made sausage with wine. Not the first time I've had fat pocket form. Never occurred to m...

OK - I brought everything inside, chilled it all...mixed 72/28 lean deer with pork fat. got fat pockets again. Re-read everything, made two smaller batches today, one with egg white, one without. both mixed ice cold until the mix looked like cotton candy and stuck like glue. Both batches had fat poc...

Congratulations to your daughter!

Fatboyz - did that 20% fat addition make for a juicy sausage? I might try this with venison, just wondering what the fat content should be, and unsure of the desired texture. I killed a sheep last year, and it was about as lean as venison.

Book on order, should arrive next week!