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Refining Sausages

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 19:12
by K98 AL
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, maybe a bit "solid". Wondering if it's just a factor of less fat, or does NFDM affect texture much? (first time using it)

I'm thinking of going to 76% lean/24% domestic fat, maybe cutting the NFDM to 1%.

Both batches were smoked for about 5 hours, then poached to IT of 152-154. Had just a little fat breakdown on the 72/28 batch with no binder.

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 23:56
by Butterbean
I have more luck with venison when I add more fat.

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 09:09
by redzed
From my experience in using venison, I have had the best results as far as taste and texture when combining 50% venison and 50% pork (30-35fat). NFDM does affect texture. It is not a very effective binder, but what it does do is allows you to add a bit more water into the mix and helps you retain more of it during the smoking. As a result the sausage is softer and more moist. The reason your sausage might have been somewhat "solid" could be because not enough water was added. Keep in mind that you will lose approximately 10% of the weight of your sausage during a 3hr smoking session, and that is all water.

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 13:16
by K98 AL
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 spices and cure. Plan is to stuff casings Friday night, smoke all day Saturday. This will be Andouille, with the nice hand cut pieces standing out from the rest of the grind. I'm running about 76/24 fat ratio on the wild pig grind, the hand cut pieces are domestic pork. I was thinking of adding 1.5% NFDM to this, what do y'all think?

And thank you again for responding to my questions. I wish I had an expert in my kitchen yelling at me, saying "hey, dummy - don't do that!" once in a while...it'd save me a lot of work.......

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 13:59
by BlueMonkey
K98 AL wrote:I I wish I had an expert in my kitchen yelling at me, saying "hey, dummy - don't do that!" once in a while...it'd save me a lot of work.......
I'd gladly lend you my wife......

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2016 14:29
by K98 AL
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 beef casings, but I didn't have any.

I hung them to dry for a few hours in the cold garage, then smoked for 5 hours with hickory and oak. I gradually increased temp from 100 to 140 at the end, then poached to IT of 154. No fat breakdown, chunks of hand cut meat looked nice, would have looked even better in a bigger casing. Taste and texture very nice.

I added no NFDM, I'm guessing the Hunter Sausage success was more due to better temp control, not the NFDM.