Chilled Pork Cushion Meat ready for grinding
We didn’t eat too many Bratwurst when I was growing up, but it is something I have developed a taste for as an adult. But if you ever look at the label on a package of store bought brats, there are a lot of ingredients you might not recognize.
Generally speaking, I like to keep a pretty clean diet, I find I feel better when I do that. I wanted sausage where I knew what was actually in it, so some while back I resolved to give making sausage a try. I already had a [easyazon_link identifier=”B00004SGFH” locale=”US” tag=”backyardmov05-20″]Kitchenaid meat grinder[/easyazon_link], so I ordered the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00004SGFQ” locale=”US” tag=”backyardmov05-20″]sausage stuffing attachment[/easyazon_link], and some hog casings….they all sat in my cupboard for over a year!
I finally had a little time off and decided to give it a go. I bought 15lbs of pork cushion meat from Costco, but soon discovered I only needed 5 lbs. I took a 5lb roast and cubed it into 1” x 1” cubes and put them in the freezer while I set up the meat grinder.
Tip: Not only is warm meat a health risk, melting fat becomes mushy and difficult to deal with, gumming up the grinder. Keeping the meat as cold as possible throughout makes things easier.
Grinding the meat…the ice chilled glass bowl helps to keep the meat at a safe temperature while grinding and reduces the time needed to chill the meat before stuffing
The [easyazon_link identifier=”B00004SGFH” locale=”US” tag=”backyardmov05-20″]Kitchenaid meat grinder[/easyazon_link] gets mixed reviews, but I was pretty pleased with it. I did have to clean the sinew out of it 3 times, to process the 5lb roast, but otherwise it wasn’t too bad. My sausage isn’t loyal to a particular styke, though I did research polish sausages for inspiration. The recipe I came up with is a Frankenstein monster of several different recipes:
For 5lbs of ground pork
2 Tbsp Granulated Garlic
1 Tbsp White sugar
1 Tbsp Ground Black Pepper
1 Tbsp Kosher Salt
Mix thoroughly with the meat.
I made a little patty and cooked it in a pan to gauge the flavor before stuffing the casing. When I do it again, I will probably dial back the granulated garlic, perhaps cut it in half.
I put the ground meat back into the freezer for approximately 4 hours.
While the meat chilled, I prepared the casings. The casings I used were hog casings packed in salt, I ordered mine through Amazon. Take the casing out, untangle them and soak them for approximately 30 minutes. For 5lbs of meat, I used two sausage casings. I changed the water out several times to ensure they were thoroughly rinsed. I used one of the sausage stuffing tubes to run water through the casings to flush the insides as well. Let me warn you, those casings stink!
Fresh homemade sausage ready for the smoker
I put a little olive oil on the sausage stuffing tube, this makes the casing easier to get on and off. As I was putting the casings onto the tube I was afraid of tearing them, but I learned that they are far more durable than I had originally expected. Very quickly, I got some air bubbles in the casing, but I was able to use a pin to poke holes in the casing to allow the air out.
While one person is able to fill the sausage by them self, it would be much easier to have one person tamping the meat while the other person controls the casings. Again, you want to have the meat as cold as possible for this step. I made my best guess at filling the sausage to an appropriate level, wary of overstuffing them. Fortunately, I was able to go back to twist the sausages to form uniform links, it was a fairly forgiving process.
Read PART 2 (Smoking) here
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