www.sausagemaking.org

Hi
I have had some shop bought sausages which I would like to try to make at home. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or similar to convert the ingredients list (in percent) to Grams. Also leaving out the preservatives
Not really sure where to start with this so any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Wally

Is this the sort of thing you're looking for?
http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/?p=cur ... alculators
Most of us use the meat and fat as 100% and express the additives as a fraction % of the meat. Ingredient lists don't usually give the exact % of everything. Welcome to the forum.

What shop bought sausage is it? Post a link and I'll take a look.

You can just treat the percentages as grams and multiply it up from there.

Phil

Hi thanks for the replys, the ingredients list i have is below for chilli cheese sausages
Pork 70%, water, cheese 7%, chilli 4%, rice flour, chickpea flour, potato starch, salt, stabilisers, dextrose, yeast extract, cornflour, preservative, white pepper, flavouring, antoxident, spice extract, herb extract.

i suppose it would be trial and error to get the flavours correct. would the flour be in place of rusk/breadcrumb? How much water would you suggest.

NCPaul, I had seen that calculator but i dont think i have enough info to be able to use it

Thanks for any comments

Are they the one from Aldi? A hot dog sausage?

Does it have a nutritional breakdown on the pack. I'm interested in the fat, protein, Carbohydrate, and sodium/salt amounts per 100gm.

Phil

Hi Phil
Yes they are the ones....

Fat 23.2g of which saturates 9.2g, carbohydrates 4.6g, of which sugars 1.8g, fibre 0.9g, protein 13.3g, salt 1.53g (all per 100g)

Paul

Ok, we know that the pork is 70%. The cheese is 7%. The chilli is 4% and the salt is 1.53%. That's 82.53%. All the other ingredients form the other 17.47%.
We know that the water is more than 7%.
We know that the rice flour, chickpea flour and potato starch are each more than 1.53%, but less than 4%. All the other ingredients are each less than 1.53%.
I'll ignore the ingredients that you're not likely to use, but as this is a hot dog you'll need preservative at a useage of about 150mg/kg nitrite. I've used cure #1 for this example as it's available from the forum owners shop.

Something like this is my initial thoughts:

Pork 70%
Water 10%
Cheese 7%
Chilli 4%
rice flour 1.6%
chickpea flour 1.6%
potato starch 1.6%
Salt 1.53%
Pepper, herbs and spices 0.71%
Dextrose/sugar 0.7%
Cornflour 0.8%
Cure #1 - 0.16%

Just multiply these percentages by whatever factor suits to get grams. I would suggest maybe 10x to start.

The method is as per this tutorial:

http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/?e=648

Obviously, you'll have to decide the herbs/spices and the type of cheese and chilli. However, I hope this helps and gives you a start.

Phil

Thanks Phil its interesting to see how you worked it out i have never used cure before bit worried about it can it be omitted. This may be a daft question but what is the difference between a normal sausage and a hot dog thanks very much for your time i am new to the hobby and really appreciate the learning cheers Paul

Well, you'll be aware of the difference in look and texture. The sausage is coarsely ground, mixed to change it from mince to sausage-meat, and stuffed.

The hot dog would normally be ground in a machine called a bowl cutter; very high speed blades chop it that fine that the particles of meat are actually coated with the fat and are locked together. It's often (incorrectly) called an emulsion, and it is a bit like making mayonnaise, but with solids instead of liquids. At home, it can be done with a food processor after mincing/grinding the meat very fine. Be aware though that it will eat low powered food processors!

It can be done at home. It's messy, and you have to be careful with temperature, but it's quite satisfying when it turns out OK.

HTH

Phil