Finished kielbasa crumbly
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:09 pmDid my first batch of kielbasa last weekend and was disappointed with the results.
My inconsistent oven strikes again. Crumbly, oiled out kielbasa, albeit flavored very well. The lowest setting my oven knob goes to is 200 so I put it to where I thought 175 would be and kept a keen eye on my oven thermometer. Seemed to regulate there so in went the links. I kept checking the temp of the oven and I got a spike of over 200 and shortly thereafter there was a little pooling of the oil in the pan. Once the links hit an IT of 152, there was a considerable amount of oil in the pan. I immediately plunged them into an ice water bath and brought the temp down to 70F. I let it bloom for a few hours and then did a test piece in the frying pan. Excellent flavor, nice and mealy!
Since my Italian sausage links came out fine thanks to a suggestion of mixing for five minutes by a member here, and they had the same fat/meat ratio (80/20) I have to assume it was, in fact, the heat spike that caused the issue. I mixed the meat very well before stuffing into casings so I don't think that was the issue. Will have to try another batch using a better method.
The issue has to be one of these:
1-Heat spikes in oven
2-Not mixed well enough
3-Too coarse of a grind
4-Not enough fat.
Any guesses as to what the most likely culprit could be?
My inconsistent oven strikes again. Crumbly, oiled out kielbasa, albeit flavored very well. The lowest setting my oven knob goes to is 200 so I put it to where I thought 175 would be and kept a keen eye on my oven thermometer. Seemed to regulate there so in went the links. I kept checking the temp of the oven and I got a spike of over 200 and shortly thereafter there was a little pooling of the oil in the pan. Once the links hit an IT of 152, there was a considerable amount of oil in the pan. I immediately plunged them into an ice water bath and brought the temp down to 70F. I let it bloom for a few hours and then did a test piece in the frying pan. Excellent flavor, nice and mealy!
Since my Italian sausage links came out fine thanks to a suggestion of mixing for five minutes by a member here, and they had the same fat/meat ratio (80/20) I have to assume it was, in fact, the heat spike that caused the issue. I mixed the meat very well before stuffing into casings so I don't think that was the issue. Will have to try another batch using a better method.
The issue has to be one of these:
1-Heat spikes in oven
2-Not mixed well enough
3-Too coarse of a grind
4-Not enough fat.
Any guesses as to what the most likely culprit could be?