re: On Do We?

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Can't wait to see how that turns out

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Thicc

Pretty much ran the same seasoning but added some water to add moisture and help the protein extraction.

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protein extraction

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Not sure what you mean by this. Water doesn’t force proteins to come out from inside the meat.

But yes, always add water as you lose moisture during the cooking process. Your goal is to add enough to cover the % you lose so when your product is finished, it’s back to the beginning weight and not dry.

(Unless you’re selling it for a profit, then your goal is to add enough so you cover your loss, plus an extra 10–15% )

Ice is used to keep the fat cold so it doesn’t “smear” and cause an undesirable appearance. Ice is definitely a part of sausage making, when needed. Or just keep your meat cold while grinding and mixing and skip the ice.



Proteins are important for moisture.

Part of a salt molecule will bind with the protein while another part of the salt molecule binds with water. In short, salt helps meat hold water.



Proteins are important for binding.

Proteins will fuse together when heated (cooked). So the idea of wanting more protein to help bind is correct.

Cutting or grinding the meat and increasing surface area gives you more proteins on the surface since you have more surface area. Maceration or tumbling (beating the meat - insert joke here) will force proteins to come to the surface.



Your procedure is correct, keep doing what you’re doing. I hope this helps you understand why. Keep making great smoked sausage!

You make hot dogs? Are you emulsifying the meat? That’s the difference between a hot dog and a sausage, for hot dogs, the fat and meat is emulsified together. Just curious and interested if that’s what you’re doing.

Awesome! I’m impressed you emulsified.

That’s why it drives me nuts when idiots come here to say the local sausage companies make hot dog quality sausage. It’s simply not true. They don’t understand it and won’t accept the truth.

Nice Post. Looks good.

Kind of an old post

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If you used fresh garlic, what weight would you use for this amount of meat

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Sorry I didn't see this question sooner. I would use .25-5% of fresh garlic by weight, depending on how much garlic flavor you want.

Nice cross section.



I plan on making it again this year and think I will hand-cut the fatback to get a more definition in the final product.

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I’m not sure that I will change it much now that I’ve tasted the original.

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Thanks, It's a variation of my grandfather's recipe. He's a Bourgeois from Richard in Acadia Parish. He and my great uncles made it all the time growing up.

Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sausage would include a % of venison. I like that version best.

The only change I made to the original recipe was to convert imperial volume measurements to metric mass and calculate percentages. I also reduced the cayenne by 3/4 (75%) to make it more public.