Homemade Sausage Making

I made some Krakowska on Monday and was wondering if drying it for a while would give it some added kick in flavor. Any of you guys dry yours in a fridge/curing chamber and for how long? I used a 2.5" diameter fibrous casing. I've got some pictures I'll post a little later.

Thanks

Krakowska can be finished in any one of three ways. Consumed after smoking (poaching is also acceptable), served semi-dry or even dry. One recipe for Krakowska dry on the Polish WD site stipulates that it be held at 12-18°C and 76-80% humidity for a period of 10-16 days until it loses about 33% of its raw weight. It is given a warm smoke (24-32°) for 2-3 hours.

The last time I made kiełbasa Krakowska I placed a couple in my curing chamber for a week. I did not do the warm smoke step. ImHO that was more than enough since it is such a lean sausage.

Watch this while you are enjoying kiełbasa Krakowska. It's Krakowiak, the signature dance of the region.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhxEgNW5tvY

Looking forward to seeing the pics of the Krakowska. I'm making a big mess here today creating a mushroom and cheese bratwurst and another mushroom salami.

redzed wrote:Krakowska can be finished in any one of three ways. Consumed after smoking (poaching is also acceptable), served semi-dry or even dry. One recipe for Krakowska dry on the Polish WD site stipulates that it be held at 12-18°C and 76-80% humidity for a period of 10-16 days until it loses about 33% of its raw weight. It is given a warm smoke (24-32°) for 2-3 hours.

The last time I made kiełbasa Krakowska I placed a couple in my curing chamber for a week. I did not do the warm smoke step. ImHO that was more than enough since it is such a lean sausage.

Watch this while you are enjoying kiełbasa Krakowska. It's Krakowiak, the signature dance of the region.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhxEgNW5tvY

Looking forward to seeing the pics of the Krakowska. I'm making a big mess here today creating a mushroom and cheese bratwurst and another mushroom salami.

THanks Redzed. You saying its held in the 12-18C 76-80%humidity AFTER its smoked? And then after 10-16 days smoke it again?

Exactly. It's all here:

http://wedlinydomowe.pl/kielbasy/trwale ... wska-sucha

Here's a few pictures. I smoked it at 100-130F for about 3 hours than slowly raised the temp to about 150-160 over the course of an hour. I then took them out an put two in a water bath and three in the oven set at 170F. The water bath temp was 165-170F. I didnt have a big enough pot so I used a disposable pan over two burners. The two I put in the water bath rendered out some of the fat. I was a little dissapointed. Outside ended up greasy but when I tried it it tasted fine, just had a few small pockets of where the fat melted away. Thats the one I have pictured cut open. The rest I have in my curing chamber drying for a few days. I was originally planning on using marianski's recipe with the addition of garlic. I had two kids and wife after me to hurry up and we all know you cant rush perfection so I ended up cutting a few corners which may cost me at the end. Used more fat than the recipe called for, and I think I smeared some of it in the grinder. Over all Im satisfied though, no one has complained about the flavor or texture, but I know it can be better.

The ones that I put in the oven didnt render out any fat, Im not going to cut them open til they've dried a while.

Another thing I noticed is the color really faded when I put the two in the water bath.

Damn Nick, that looks excellent, mind sharing your recipe?

Nick - I´m impressed. To judge from the pictures you can compete with any a Pole
If the color fading remains an issue when slicing... did you consider adding sodium ascorbate or ascorbic acid ?

Hi Nick,
What a wonderful looking Krakowska sausages. Congratulations on a great job. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Cheers,
Jan.

Good job Nick. The kiełbasa does look like Krakowska! I have seen some that look like a bologna trying to pass as Krakowska.
Poaching always takes some colour off, but most of it returns when given a chance to bloom. I think the sausage will be excellent after several days in the curing chamber. And if you are intending to dry the sausage then you can usually skip the cold water bath.

Post pics after you cut into it after drying.

Any new pictures Nick? and can you post your recipe?

With the great price currently available on fresh pork loin, I thought I would give this recipe a try. Total batch weight around 20 pounds or just over 9 Kilo.

Find it here: http://wedlinydomowe.pl/kielbasy/trwale ... wska-sucha

Google Translate left a few things confusing, and due to some other stuff going on this past week, I thought I'd just give it a try anyway, figuring I had a basic understanding of what to expect.

We cubed the different pork types into two different sizes, and mixed them together. The beef we diced for grinding and set aside also. We hand chopped the pork back fat and also kept that separate. The pork and beef received their proper allotment of salt and cure. The fat was just salted. All was placed into cooler for 72 hours or so.

Spices and seasonings were measured out and appropriately divided. The pork placed into the freezer along side the beef for a quick chill. The beef was sent through the food processor and emulsified, and then, back into the cooler. The cubed pork was placed into the mixer, seasonings added along with a bit of cold water as an assist. We bumped the pork in the mixer for about five minutes then added the emulsified beef. When that was mixed well, the meat was removed to a tub and the fat pieces were mixed in by hand.

Although it began raining, I continued on with my plan to smoke them that afternoon. They dried for about two hours, then received lite Apple wood smoke for three hour. Finished in a poaching bath at just over an hour, and cooled for maybe 20 minutes.

They have been hanging for almost three days, and I plan to give them another batch of smoke for 8 hours overnight.

Sure hope I understood redzeds comments (above), as well as the Google translation.

After the overnight smoke, can they be vacuum packed immediately, or do they hang some more.

Comments appreciated. Pictures later, if they are worthy of sharing.

Jim

Jim, congrats on following the traditional Krakowska recipe down to the T! And you even salted the fat separetely! The older Polish recipes always required that you do that, and the amount of nitrate that went into the sausage was based on the amount of meat without the fat. That is something that is rarely done today, even by the most pedantic practitioners that show their products on the Polish WD forum.

As to the packaging of the sausage after that last cold smoke, give it a couple of days in the fridge uncovered. It will dry just a bit more and that last cold smoke will have a chance to balance out the final flavour. You could also let one chub dry even longer to give you a different texture and stronger flavour of the spices.

Please post pics!

Chris

Thanks for the kind words, Chris. Originally, I had planned to do this with a fresh ham. I checked prices with a local full service butcher. He wanted $3.99 per pound! I thought that $73.20 was too pricy for making sausage. This recipe was a bit more labor intensive than the recipe of Stan M's I made the last two times, but certainly not difficult to make. Mixing the cure and salt three days ahead doesn't happen often, but when it does, it allows me to stuff and begin smoking earlier in the day.

I may have made a small error with the second smoking. As I understood, there were two options for smoking; cold smoke or warm smoking at 90°F (32°C). I went with the warm smoke, but my temperatures were closer to 115°F (46°C). The chubs received 10 hours of Cherry wood smoke overnight.

We left town early this morning. Having not yet received your comments, I decided to keep them hanging at 68°F (20°C) with 72% RH until my return on Monday afternoon. Individual chubs were not separately weighed, but all seven weighed just less than 21.5 pounds. After the overnight smoke and three days of drying, the weight had dropped to 17 pounds, about a 20% loss already. I can't imagine what the loss would be after the full 16 days he recommends!

Jim

Great looking sausage and smoke house, I think both are very well done!

Sounds good Jim.