re: Homemade Andouille

Well, I did it. It wasn't a home run. More like a solid base hit, but hey, it's my first time. Lots of room for improvement. I didn't have everything, so it was kind of made up on the fly based on the recipe in this thread and elsewhere.

2.1 kg pork shoulder
27 g salt
6 g black pepper
10 g paprika
2 g thyme
1 g white pepper
11 g garlic powder
4 g hot pepper powder blend (homemade of cayenne, habanero, and ghost)
1.1 tsp cure

Ground it on Friday night and hand mixed it. Stuffed it this morning and let it sit in the casing a couple hours before smoking. It was my first time stuffing sausage and it's definitely a finesse thing. I'll get better.

Went to smoke and discovered my charcoal stash was low, so I had to cut it with some apple wood chunks to get enough fuel. Also used some pecan chips because that was the only pecan I could find. Started it at 130ish and took it to 200 over the fourish hours it took.

Final product is serviceable. Like I said, I can improve a lot. I'm not giving up. I need to find some way to hang them in my smoker. I thought I had some stainless S-hooks, but I couldn't find them. I also think it has too much smoke flavor. It's very smokey. Next time I'll go lighter on the wood.

Ground and mixed



Amazon-supplied casing. Thanks, BigD.



Stuffed...maybe too stuffed. I was afraid to make links on the big sausage.



On the smoker.



Final product