Sausage-Making 101: Common Issues | High Caliber Products (2024)

FAQs

Sausage-Making 101: Common Issues | High Caliber Products? ›

Mixing The Ingredients

Grinding and mixing are important parts of sausage making. It is important that the ingredients are properly mixed, but bear in mind that grinding too finely and over-mixing can ruin a good sausage mixture.

Mixing The Ingredients

Grinding and mixing are important parts of sausage making. It is important that the ingredients are properly mixed, but bear in mind that grinding too finely and over-mixing can ruin a good sausage mixture.

The best sausages are made from good cuts of meat with plenty of fat, which will cook quickly and be tender and juicy inside the usually narrow casing, which is why pure meat sausages with no additives are generally more expensive than cheaper varieties which are laced with preservative and other adulterants.

Sausages burst because they are either overfilled in the skins/casings, or they have too many air bubbles when making the sausages. When using collagen casings they must be left to rest in the fridge overnight.

Too much fat – Same as water, fat must be encapsulated for a proper sausage consistency. Having too much fat in your meat block will be too much for the proteins, and allow the fat once cooked to break down what bind was created.

As sausage ingredients are mixed together, a great amount of heat is generated, it is important to add ice as an ingredient rather that water to quickly and effectively remove that heat to prevent the product from cooking during the mixing process.

Skeletal muscle meats from slaughtered animals are the principal ingredients used in sausage production. However, the different skeletal muscles vary not only in their contents of fat, water and proteins, but also in their water binding and emulsifying properties, colour, etc.

Fat. The meat for a sausage should contain about 25 - 30% fat in it. This will make the sausage tender and juicy, without fat it will feel dry.

Sausages should contain 25-30% fat. This may seem like a lot but many commercially made sausages contain 50% fat. So, you need 250-300g of fat per 1kg of sausage mix. Like most things to do with sausages, it is not necessary for the ratio of fat to meat to be perfect.

Sausage casings hold and shape the meat and spices inside to keep it all contained. Johnsonville casings come in natural and synthetic varieties, all of which are edible. Basically, decasing a sausage gives you access to the meaty goodness inside, allowing you to use the ground meat for other recipe ideas.

What does it mean when white stuff comes out of sausage? ›

The white stuff is, in fact, mold. A very specific mold, used in the fermenting of sausages. By innoculating the sausages with a specific and beneficial mold, the good mold kills any bad molds and keeps them from spoiling the product... It may have been “killed” after the sausage was made and just left on for flavor.

Keeping the meat thoroughly chilled is essential. If the meat warms, the protein and fats in the sausage can separate, causing the sausage to break when it cooks, resulting in a coarse, grainy texture. It's also a good idea to chill the grinder and stuffer attachments before using.

Sausages need to be cooked on a low heat. I never prick or cut the skin, because that lets all the juices out. I use a little bit of oil, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan, heat the pan to a medium heat, then put the sausages in and turn the heat down to low.

Tthe biggest argument for poking holes or scoring sausage casings is to prevent them from bursting, but there's a way to prevent that without leaking the juices. A big mistake is using heat that's too high, which can cause exploded casings and uneven cooking.

Salami sausage, which is produced by the fermentation and smoking of uncooked meat, may be added 200 mg nitrite per kg in order to prevent growth of Clostridium botulinum.

The longer you mix a batch of sausage, the more protein you extract. Fresh sausage is typically mixed 1 or 2 minutes, while smoked sausage is often mixed 5 to 7 minutes. The texture of meat for smoked sausage should be very sticky (extracted protein) at the end of the mixing cycle.

Color changes: Changes in color are often a giveaway, especially if you see a grey or greenish tinge to your sausages. If your cooked sausage turns brown, you should throw it out. Changes in texture: A slimy texture, especially with a loss of color and firmness, probably means your sausage is no longer edible.

If you cook a sausage over a high heat it will, understandably, shrink considerably, drying out the exterior or even splitting whilst potentially leaving the centre uncooked. Too high a temperature will also liquify the fat content that has been so carefully mixed into your sausage to keep it moist and juicy.

Baking and Frying Them

In the oven, the skin won't develop the umami-rich caramelization that sausage lovers expect. Deep frying your links only results in a tough, chewy exterior and none of that signature snap.