Online Workshop: Project B2 (October 2013)

[el Ducko]

...For now, make a "fresh" sausage. Your own! Remember not to smoke it (without a cure being added). Please keep good notes and write down all the details. Take photos too. Show us some preparation steps as well as some finished on the plate. And give your sausage an original name! Who can tickle the taste buds with this project? Go team, go!
....
Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

And now... (drum roll, please!) the ideal accompaniment to the fried-egg-and-tomato-on-a-toasted-everything bagel when you can't get an everything bagel ! Introducing... ...the Everything Sausage...!

Yowza, yowza, if you live in a part of the country (or on some other world) where you can't obtain a decent Jewish deli "everything" bagel, here's the answer to your prayer. Make up a batch of breakfast sausage (I used Marianski's, on-line or in the book, "Home Production Of Quality Meats And Sausages"). Let it season overnight in the refrigerator.

Next morning, preheat an oven (toaster oven is fine) to 350 degF, then mix up an "everything" coating which hopefully simulates the real thing. It's a collection of all the delicious things that get sprinkled onto bagels during the manufacturing process but didn't stick. The actual composition is not important. For mine, I used:
---1 Tbsp dried minced onion
---1/2 Tbsp granulated garlic
---1/2 Tbsp sesame seeds
---1/4 Tbsp poppy seeds
---1/4 Tbsp coarse salt
---1/4 Tbsp coarse black pepper
---1/4 Tbsp whole caraway seed
Note that the stronger or finer an ingredient is, the farther it goes! (...so use less.) Mix it roughly by hand.

Now, one at a time, pat out a patty containing about 2 Tbsp of sausage mince. Pat it thin, so as to almost cover a sliced bagel. Drop it into the container of "everything" mix, then flip it over, so as to coat all sides and the rim. Set the patty on a sheet of aluminum foil, then continue until all are made. Slide the sheet containing the sausage patties into the oven and cook for 20 - 30 minutes. The seasonings will take on a toasted look.

I tried pan frying them, with poor results. (Heat transfer is a major problem.) The seasonings cooked to blackness, but the sausage was still uncooked. Putting oil in the pan helped, but the seasonings still blackened. The answer: baking the patties works great, although it takes a bit longer. This is to be expected- - after bagels are boiled and the coating added, they are baked, so why not bake the sausage too?

To serve, cut any old bagel, even a frozen grocery store plain one, in half. Toast it. Meanwhile, fry an egg. Cut a slice of tomato. Slap them together, bagel bottom, egg, sausage, tomato, bagel top, and enjoy!

Picture of the prep phase (with 1 Tbsp test patties) follows. Warning: pork sausage is extremely non-Kosher. ...but you knew that anyway, fellow sausage maniacs.

[Chuckwagon]

That's fantastic! Way to go Duck. Breakfast of champions eh?

[el Ducko]

That's fantastic! Way to go Duck. Breakfast of champions eh?

Hmmm... champignons...?
Mais oui! Certainement. Pourquoi pas? ...sautés dans le beurre. YeeHah!

[grasshopper]

Just can't get enough meat sticks. Grubstake garlic beef stick 2/3 and 1/3 kababosy. Surly like to get a flavored pepperoni stick recipe that does not use a curing chamber. Also what is the difference between fermento and encapsulated citric acid. It may be used in a flavored smoked pepperoni stick.?

[sambal badjak]

Beautiful sausages all!

Just a quick update:
I am fairly up to date with the reading but behind in the actual sausage making.
It has basically been too busy and too hot to spend much time in the kitchen (and trying to get a lot of fishing in before the season closes )

The good news is that I have ordered a sausage stuffer and different size mincing plates for my size 32 hand mincer. The bad news is that it will take time to get it here.

I'll be away for part of December, but will try to get some kabanosy or chorizo done before I go.

The away part is not so bad as that is to the Netherlands where I will pick up my mincer plates (and a small 1 plate hot stove for a bit of temperature control in my smoker and a thermometer and a ......).
I am currently googling to see where I can pick up the different cultures for making fermented and dry sausages (although I am still a bit scared about making this due to the climate I live in, winter might be a good time though)

[markjass]

Happy Birthday CW.

Made some smoked cured sausages today. Things have cropped up at short notice all day and so I have done things different today. The aim of this posting is to show that you can use different methods for cooking as long as you keep it safe. Read CW, read it again and again.

Normally

Day 1
make the sausages. Leave them in the fridge until the following day.

Day 2
store the sausages at room temperature for about 2 hours. Put them in my smoker at about 50-60 degrees for two hours and then every two hours raise the temperature by about 10 degrees until the internal temperature is 69 degrees. The maximum temperature I let my smoker get to is 90 degrees (my digital thermometers are alarm set). My temperature control method is by turning up the gas (start with the inner burner only, then turn the outer burner on and the inner burner off) and opening and closing the vents and sometimes lifting the lid with a peg. It works well, but requires very regular checking.

This takes between 6-8 hours. There is no way I can go out.

Then the sausages are cooled and left to bloom. The process takes 8-10 hours.


I had planned to make the sausages the same way, but I had to do other things.


Day 1
10 am bought pork shoulder chops (normally do not buy chops, but the price was a clinch).
11.30 pm boned the pork put the chops in my freezer too tired to cube the meat

Day 2
08.00 cubed the meat left the frozen fast meat in the fridge. Went out for a coffee and a short hike with a mate who came into town.
2pm made the sausages
2.40 pm placed the sausages in the oven (fan not on) at 50 degrees (used the digital thermometer to adjust the temperature). Propped the oven door ajar with a knife to let the sausages dry. Plan was for 1 hour and then put them in the smoker. Had to speak with a neighbour. Knew the sausages would be ok in the oven.
4.40 pm Sausage internal temp about 44 degrees. Closed the oven door (invited out for a vino and pizza)
6.30 pm Sausage internal temp about 48 degrees. Placed sausages in smoker 70 degrees and started smoking.
7.30 pm temperature up to 80 degrees
8.30 pm temperature up to about 90 degrees
20.40 Sausages hit 69 degrees (2 hrs smoking - which is about the amount of smoke time I wanted)

Verdict.
Mad day,
Easier to control temperature in my oven.
Would have been pushed to get more than 1.5 kg of sausages in my oven (can get 5 kg in my smoker).
Sausages are not as glossy (may be due to fact that I cut down the %of fat to about 20% rather than about 26-28%), taste the same (fantastic), are curved because the way I had to hang them in the oven.
Time 6 hrs rather than 6-8 hrs (would have to use this method a few times to average out the time)
Have more of a snap when biting into them.
Not as dry (the last batch took 8 hrs)
Decision. If I make a batch of sausages less than 1.5 kg I would use this method.

Will post pictures in the next few days

[markjass]

My set up. My cold/hot smoker. The smoker is external and the heat is provided by a two ring gas burner. The thermometers measure the internal temperature of the smoker and internal temperature of the meat. My set up can smoke from ambient tenperature to 146 degrees C (scary- as high as I have dared). Remember it is not Just about sausage safty. Do not burn your neighbourhood down unless you have severe problems.Note the hose and the plastic bag which contains sand. I also have a fire blanket nearby.I have an old cast iron frypan inside my smoker. This is filled with sand. This absorbs the fat drippings. It also disipates the deat and reduces temperature fluctuations.





The outer burner is going. The internal temperature of the smoker is 86 degrees C (the alarm is off). The internal temperature of the sausages is 66 degrees C. The alarm is set at 69 degrees C.





My finished sausage. These smoked sausages are warm.

5 grams of cayenne pepper and garlic per kg of pork
15 grams of smoked spanish paprika per kg
2.5g of black pepper per kg
+ other herbs and spices

Mark

[el Ducko]

...Do not burn your neighbourhood down unless you have severe problems...

(Little voices inside head: They know who you are. They know where you live. They....)
Sage advice! ...but stay on those meds, Bubbie.

That's the best barrel smoker that I've ever seen. Mine is metal, shaped like a metal barrel. Yours is... A REAL BARREL! (I'm envious.)
Duk

[Chuckwagon]

Mark,
These are terrific notes. Well done pal. I'm curious how the texture of the sausage came out. Did you have a "dry" batch before? Raise the temperature very slowly so you don't break the collagen, but don't allow too much time in the heat or it can start to dry out. What is the fat content? What was the final finishing temperature? Great setup. Nice photos. Lookin' good Mark!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

[Shuswap]

Just made my first brine for Canadian Bacon. Yeah, I knw it doesn't belong to us like Hockey Night In Canada. According to everything I've read Praque #1 is measured according to the weight of the meat but is mixed in with other ingrdients in the brine.

Bearing in mind CW's rule to measure the cure accurately I resisted the temptation to add more because the 6 grams seemed like nothing compared to the salt measure. Now, if I have too much brine, I will pour some off but then I won't have CW's pricise measure for #1. Will this affect my grade on completing B2?

[grasshopper]

My 2 cents worth. If the pork loin is less than 2 inches thick, it does not have to be injected. Over 2 inches it must be injected with cure and brine. I always fillet the loin less than 2 inches thick and the cure is in the brine. Lots of pepper on the outside before smoking.

[Shuswap]

My 2 cents worth. If the pork loin is less than 2 inches thick, it does not have to be injected. Over 2 inches it must be injected with cure and brine. I always fillet the loin less than 2 inches thick and the cure is in the brine. Lots of pepper on the outside before smoking.

Thanks Grasshopper - tomorrow morning I'll be trimming the lion then brining for 3 days. It will be my first smoke in the Masterbuilt - patience can be trying.

[el Ducko]

Just made my first brine for Canadian Bacon. Yeah, I knw it doesn't belong to us like Hockey Night In Canada. According to everything I've read Praque #1 is measured according to the weight of the meat but is mixed in with other ingrdients in the brine.

Bearing in mind CW's rule to measure the cure accurately I resisted the temptation to add more because the 6 grams seemed like nothing compared to the salt measure. Now, if I have too much brine, I will pour some off but then I won't have CW's pricise measure for #1. Will this affect my grade on completing B2?

Most of the brining recipes are based on tradition (or "what works," which may be the same thing). I'd stick to the recipe if I were you.

But having said that, I've done some spreadsheeting of the brining process, and a couple of things jump out at me. One is that meat takes up about 10% of its "green" weight in brine (to as much as 15% or 20%, depending on type of meat, injection amount, and all sorts of other things). If you have a brine of a known composition and you figure up the amount of nitrite in the amount of brine taken up, then divide by the meat's green weight, you get an approximation of what the nitrite concentration in the meat is. It turns out that, if you have a fair amount of excess brine, a wide variance in how much nitrite is in the brine doesn't change the amount in the meat much because of that ten-to-one ratio.

Say, what???
Maybe this will help. Suppose you "dry cure" the meat. What you put on the meat is pretty much what will be in the meat. Nitrite concentration is easy to compute. What is rubbed on, divided by green weight, gives the concentration in the meat.

Next, suppose you mix up an amount of brine equal to 10% of the meat's weight, and inject it all into the meat. ...same deal- - what is injected, divided by green weight, gives the concentration in the meat.

Now, consider the case where brine equal to 10% of the green weight is injected, and an additional amount of the same brine is used to cover the meat. ...same deal- - what is injected, divided by green weight, gives the concentration in the meat. That's because the composition of the injected material and the bulk brine are the same. Assuming that no more brine is absorbed or comes out, nothing changes.

So, now, suppose that there's a whole lot more brine than meat. As long as the composition of the injected stuff is the same as the bulk brine, nothing changes. You could submerge the meat in your local ocean and, as long as you injected brine from the same ocean, the concentration in the meat wouldn't change.

Now, dump an extra gram of cure #1 into the ocean. ...notice any change? I doubt it. There's so much more ocean brine than injected brine that the concentration doesn't change much.

...same way for brining meat with a reasonable amount of brine. If the amount of brine in the meat is small compared with the bulk amount of brine, the change in concentration within the meat won't be much. Fortunately, brining is a forgiving process... as long as you follow recipe or custom.

"But wait! There's more!" as the television promoters say. Since the amount of brine taken up by the meat is only 10% of the green weight, it follows that the concentration in the bulk of the brine will be around ten times the value of the concentration in the meat.

Huh? Howzat? Well, the concentration in the meat is
(wt. nitrite)/(wt. nitrite + wt. water + wt. meat),
whereas the concentration in the brine is
(wt. nitrite)/(wt. nitrite + wt. water).
If you plug in that 10% factor, that means that "wt. meat" is nine times the amount of "wt. nitrite + wt. water", which pulls the concentration way down. The nitrate is distributed throughout both the water and nine times as much weight in the form of meat.

Confused yet? Yeah, I am too. ...but that's how it works. Got a headache yet? Take two bourbon and call me in the morning. Don't deviate too much from the brining recipe, though. (Forgiveness is in short supply these days.)

"So, Duck, if you're so smart, why ain't you rich" from spreadsheet royalties? Well, to be honest, it's difficult to say how much exactly is absorbed, unless you dry-rub or inject and exact amount. Even then, it can ooze out, or not be completely absorbed. ...so this is an approximate measure. That's why we use tried-and true (or traditional) recipes and don't stray much from them. For those interested, yeah, I have a spreadsheet and no, the brining portion is still under development. I'll probably put together a series of posts in six months or so on how to build the spreadsheet, kind of like I did on chorizos of the Americas. That way, it can be archived on one place and suitably ignored. But there are a few who are interested.

...hopefully.

...maybe?

[Shuswap]

Duck - I appreciate the time you took to explain my brine question, although it was a bit heavy for 6:30 am. Just put the loin into the brine and saved myself study time by not removing any of the brine. My way of keeping to the brine recipe. Cheers

[el Ducko]

Thanks. Sorry for the wordiness.
Which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the...........................
Duk