Thread: Sausage and Smoke Cooking

Originally Posted by 32t

The best recipe I have heard is 1/2 Pork, 1/2 beef, and 1/2 potatoes.

This is the recipe I used:

Makes 5 Lbs

1 small onion cut up
1 Tablespoon plain salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup non-fat dry milk
1 cup ice cold water
6 potatoes peeled and cut up (approx 6 cups)
1 1/2 lbs lean boneless beef
1 lb lean boneless pork

Grinding and mixing

Grind the meat, potatoes and onion through a 3/8" plate and place in a mixer. Add all the other ingredients with the water and mix well.

Then regrind through a 3/16" plate. Stuff into 35-38 mm hog casings.

This sausage is a very perishable product, it keeps best frozen.

The idea of keeping the finished product in water was my idea.

Well my dry cured soppressata is ever so slowly losing weight.

It's been two weeks to the day since they went into my frost free frig. Here's the progress report;

Original weights:

163--
685--
738--
923--

03/15--143
03/15-- 634
03/15--689
03/15--835

03/22--126
03/22--581
03/22--641
03/22--756

The small one is a ball shape and it's lost about 25% of the weight. I'm thinking this is due to not only being small but with more surface area for moisture to be drawn out of.

The largest has lost about 18% of the weight and the other two about 20%.

Another week has gone by and the chubs are still losing weight.

In frig on 03/08/2021

Original Weights (In Grams):

163--
685--
738--
923--

03/15--143
03/15-- 634
03/15--689
03/15--835

03/22--126
03/22--581
03/22--641
03/22--756

03/29-- 112
03/29-- 532
03/29-- 591
03/29-- 691

They varied between not quite 30% to right around 20% I figure the average is 24.25%

The smallest 'might' be ready to have a taste/texture sampling next week--

Damn Roy you are so math-y I am waiting on the taste report.

Some spare ribs and a chicken experiment. I cured the chicken breast and tenderloins. I was planning on tying it all up in a neat bundle and smoking it, but those are slippery buggers. After a bit of cussing I decided to wrap them up in cheese cloth. I have it hanging off of the grate while smoking. I am planning on slicing up thin to use on sandwiches after it cools off.

I saw a recipe on line that used netting I decided I could do it with tying twine. Nope.

Beef jerky, after fiddling around with different methods of making jerky I finally have a method I am happy to with. I am using charcoal briquettes in a snake pattern on top of a cookie sheet. I start the snake thin 2 briquettes wide and slowly make it bigger. The smoker will run for hours at a low temp drying the meat then ramp up in temp at the end of the process to around 140.

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The smallest chub of the dry cured Soppressata was at 35% weight loss this morning. I've been busy getting things ready for Easter Dinner tomorrow but I'm taking a break so I decided to see how the sausage was.

It has an interesting flavor and the distinct 'tang' there is one spot that is quite hard at the edge but the meat toward the outside is about the texture that I've had from store bought, however the center is too soft for my taste so I'm figuring it'll need to go to right at 40%.

Was that dry spot to the back where the fan blows on it?

Just thinking and don't know if your frig has a fan...