Homemade Sausage Making

Great video! Wow, those things look terrific. I can almost smell them clear across this ol' country too. I'll bet your neighbors are going nuts!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Ross that video is absolutely great, and a real help to me, thanks a ton! Right before I came in to use the computer I assembled a small batch of dough, it's sitting in the fridge right now as a matter of fact. I was torn between another effort at rolls or turning it into a pizza. Geez, your rolls look fantastic, I can only hope the ones I'll make come out half that nice. Thanks again! RAY

I started making bread in my own kitchen 55 years ago. Stay with it you can't make it worse than store bought.

if when you shape them up they are too long it is fair to trim them.

Your bread looks fantastic Ross. I could just reach into the computer and taste it!How do you find the time for all the extraordinary things you do?
I am constantly blown away by the skill, resourcefulness and range of things people on this site are involved in. Inspirational!
Ursula

That was really generous of you to take the time and effort to film and post that video, I've watched it three times now. I came a lot closer to getting what I'm after, especially after reading your comment about end-trimming being fair. I baked the rolls at 400°, I'm going to set the oven at 375° for my next attempt, and make the folds a bit more wide during shaping for a wider roll.



Of course the trimmings got gobbled up with a little butter, and the rolls are so delicious they also were gone in no time. I'll be at the grocery store when they open at 6am to pick up some more yeast, then make a full 24oz flour batch to put in the fridge and use tomorrow. Today's dough will not only lead to more rolls tomorrow, I'm having constant thoughts of making my own pizza from a hunk of that dough. I've got the stuff on hand that I think I'll need; sauce, mozzarella cheese, salami, Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, bell pepper, onion, and shrooms. The concern is whether to brown the sausage in a pan before baking. Your rolls look gorgeous, thanks again Ross. RAY

The appearance of your rolls is much lighter and fluffier looking than mine Ross, mine are a bit dense and heavy. I'm using Gold Medal all purpose flour. Should I be using bread flour instead? Maybe a slight increase in yeast or sugar? Here's the plan for the next batch!

1 egg, 1 cup milk, add water to make 16oz total
24oz all-purpose flour
10.2 grams salt
13.6 grams sugar
13.6 grams melted butter
1 tbsp. dry yeast

Where do you place the racks in the oven, low or middle? Ooo, I've got a oven thermometer! I'm going to run a test to see if what I'm plugging in is what I'm baking at. Thanks again for all your help Ross, I'm having a lot of fun learning, so much that I hardly sleep! RAY

Sorry about that omission. I baked at 375°F for 20 minutes. my flour is Safeway house brand unbleached, no added fat beyond the little bit of bacon fat that oiled the bowl.
The dough was mixed first just to moisten all of the flour, the covered for about a half hour and mixed with my hand until it was all uniform in texture and allowed to rest again for a while. I do all of my kneading in this bowl;
I start with the bowl in front of me and with the flat of my hand sweep some of the dough on the far side of the bowl from the 2 oclock position to the 10 oclock then rotate the bowl counter clockwise a small turn and sweep a handful of dough as if I was mixing a stiff mud I do this for about five minutes and rake down the sides of the bowl. When I start my hand accumulates sticky dough until it is covered. I just scrap it of with a table knife and continue. after about 3 or 4 minutes the dough stops sticking to my hand and begins to pull the dough off my hand. When that stage is reached another minute and it is done. Then dusting lightly with flour I push the dough around in the bowl to shape it into a ball. Then I pour some bacon fat in around the sides of the bowl and roll the ball around to coat it. The I cover it and let it rise for a few hours.

Yesterday's batch was four pounds of flour a rounded tablespoon of table salt, four tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of yeast, four eggs, three cups of milk and water to make 41 ounces of total liquid including the eggs.

Ray, if you have a Sam's or BJ's Or Costco or some such as those buy a two pound package of yeast from there. It will keep for years unopened and after opening in the freezer. The cost is around 6 dollars.

That's great info Ross, thank you. I've got a SS bowl just like that, and some bacon fat! I haven't been kneading the dough near long enough, I can see that now. I'm a Costco guy but I just paid $6.69 for a little jar of Fleishman's Dry yeast, that'll last awhile. Another thought I had after some online investigation was that I need to warm up my liquid mixture a bit to maybe 90-100 degrees, and then to let the yeast sit in the mixture for about ten minutes until it's dissolved, I could still see the clumps of yeast in my two previous efforts. My oven tests out pretty accurate, I'll give 375° a shot. Thanks again Ross for all your help. RAY

Save the jar when it is empty for the bulk yeast. My eggs, and milk came straight from the fridge the water cool from the tap. I hollowed out the pile of flour as you would mixing mortar in a tub and poured the cold liquid in as a big puddle and sprinkled the yeast on. after a minute or three I whisked that and included some of the flour until it was like pancake batter. That sat and in about ten minutes got bubbly and I mixed in the rest of the flour. Then I took a break. After that is goes as the other post.
The dough was cold to my hand during the first mixing. and it was cool when I put it in the fridge. Warming the liquid and keeping the dough warm during the rise speeds things along but the dough will rise in a cold fridge.

Wow! Terrific information ol' timer! Thank you very much.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

ssorllih wrote:Yesterday's batch was four pounds of flour a rounded tablespoon of table salt, four tablespoons of sugar

That has to be at least a two to one sugar to salt ratio maybe? I've got everything measured and ready to go, it's 5am. I'm going to try increasing my sugar to 21 grams, get the yeast dissolved into the liquid, and knead for a longer period of time. I even spent $7 on a rolling pin! What could go wrong when I've got a rolling pin? RAY

Ray you will do fine. Pay attention to the changes in the way the dough feels under your hand. It will start out as a stiff uncooperative mass of goo and after some resting and kneading you will feel it start to change and come alive. The sugar will help the crust brown and it feeds the yeast some but the flour makers blend in a little malted barley for that also.

Ross,
I am an avid pizza maker, 2nd only to my love for sausage making. I am always trying new dough recipes and yours got my interest. I appreciate your posts and video showing a unique way of making buns. Anyway, I have gone to weighing all my ingredients instead of guessing at what a cup of flour weighs or what a tablespoon of sugar (or whatever) is about right. Therefore, if anyone is interested, here is Ross's recipe as best as I could calculate things, based in baker's percentage using an expanded dough calculator that lets you calculate any target weight of finished dough. I halved Ross's recipe for my attempts. I simply used the bowl from my KitchenAid stand mixer and placed it on my scale and then added all the dry ingredients first. I then added the water, milk and eggs. I weighed everything out. The two large eggs (without the shells) weighed just a tad more than what the calculator figured, but was close enough. I left the KitchenAid at the number 1 mixer setting and after about 3 minutes everything was well incorporated. I then continued to mix at speed 1 for 10 more minutes. This produced a very nice dough ball.

Ross, I assumed you use water and milk at a 50/50 ratio? That's what I used so if your recipe is different, let me know.

Total dough weight target: 1523 g
Dough hydration (water): 27.5%
IDY (Instant dry yeast): 0.5%
Salt : 1%
Sugar: 2.7%
Milk (fresh): 27.5%
Eggs, large: 10%

Flour, AP: 900.12 g | 31.75 oz | 1.98 lbs
Water: 247.53 g | 8.73 oz | 0.55 lbs
IDY: 4.5 g | 0.16 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.49 tsp | 0.5 tbsp
Salt; 9 g | 0.32 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.61 tsp | 0.54 tbsp
Sugar: 24.3 g | 0.86 oz | 0.05 lbs | 6.1 tsp | 2.03 tbsp
Milk, fresh: 247.53 g | 8.73 oz | 0.55 lbs | 16.5 tbsp | 1.03 cups
Eggs, large: 90.01 g | 3.18 oz | 0.2 lbs | 5.93 tbsp | 0.37 cups
Total weight: 1523 g | 53.72 oz | 3.36 lbs | TF = N/A

Here's the link to the expanded dough calculator, courtesy of pizzamaking.com: dough calc

I'll post pics after I bake my sausage rolls, that is, if they turn out OK.