Sausagemaking.org Mixes ?

[Bangerboy]

Hi all, I must say im enjoying my foray into the world of sausage making, but I am definately still a novice of novices.

I have a question.

The sausages I am making at the moment are ok, but to be brutally honest are way, way off what I want them to be. The flavour is not right and my missus (trained london chef) tells me quite rightly that they are not there yet.

Well up to now I have been using ready mixes supplied to me by the place where I did my 1 day sausage course. They advertise on ebay and cant think of their name off hand. I must admit i wasnt taken greatly by the flavour of their sausages that they make, but I guessed thats what fresh butchers sausages should tast like as Im new to this.

So ive been using their ready mixes which have the flavours ready mixed with the rusk, but even adding my own bits and bobs to them cant improve the taste greatly.

Now Ive seen the mixes for sale on sausagemaking.org and they do sound good. Do they have the rusk mixed in already ?
And are there any recomendations ?
And does anyone know if they are better than the ones Im using now ?


Many , many thanks

Matt

[Paul Kribs]

Bangerboy

Sausagemaking.org mixes do not contain rusk, you have to order it seperately. They are generally very good mixes, and I have not had a problem with them.
I have a pictorial turorial on my site regarding making sausages using the mixes. I use them at 50 grams per kilo of meat and they come up salty, which suits my taste.. but I would recommend you start with the recommended 25 - 40 grams and see if you like it.
If you want to view the tutorial just click the WWW at the bottom of this post and go to the sausagemaking section.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[Oddley]

Hi Bangerboy, I have tried some of Sausagemaking.org mixes and most of the ones I tried were quite nice. If like some of the members here, you are happy using sausage mixes then Franco's should suite you.

If you are looking for unique tastes or some taste you have in mind, then you will have to make your own spice mixtures up. I do this and have produced some truly wonderful tasting sausages. I have also had some disasters that I wouldn't feed to a dog.

I don't think that making up my own spice mixes is much cheaper than buying them. I don't really do it to save money, I do it for the satisfaction of sometimes making a sausage that no one else has tasted, and is better than the ones made by mixes.

I'm interested in what you learned on your sausage making course. I presume it was with www.sausage-maker.co.uk for instance did you learn how to control the texture of sausages with rusk, water, and mixing. perhaps you can give your thoughts on the course so anybody thinking of taking it will be better informed.

[Wohoki]

I agree with Oddley. Half the fun for me is trying to decide what I want the sausage to taste like, and then making something I wouldn't feed to Oddley's dog Fancy a pork vindaloo banger, or lamb and anchovy (actually a lot nicer than it sounds), or just black pepper and fresh sage, or............? Great fun.

[aris]

The one advantage of buying ready sausage mixes is consistency (assuming it was mixed by professionals). The next batch will be like the last one.

[Oddley]

I don't think that's necessarily so aris, if you use the percent system then make a large spice mix you are going to get very little variation. I have used one of the Devro recipes as an example.

FRESH BEEF BREAKFAST SAUSAGE

%
93.0 Beef Plate 55% lean
3.7 Ice
3.3 Spice Mix

SPICE MIX

%
66.7 Salt
16.6 White Sugar
8.3 White Pepper
3.3 Ground Nutmeg
1.6 Ground Sage
1.9 MSG
1.6 Ground Ginger

250 gm Spice mix

166.75 gm Salt
41.5 gm White Sugar
20.75 gm White Pepper
8.25 Ground Nutmeg
4 gm Ground Sage
4.75 gm MSG
4 gm Ground Ginger

As you can see using the percent system you can make spice mixes up at any weight you wish. just keep what you don't use in a jar.

[aris]

Hi Oddley,

Well, it depends alot on the mix - but like mixing tobacco or tea - the raw ingredients are a natural product with a natural variation in flavour, intensity etc. The large commercial mixers will (well, they should) have professionals who are able to grade the different spices and process them (for instance toasting, or grinding) to quantifiable criteria.

Granted, for most people at home - this is not an issue as the natural variation between each batch is part of the fun, but certainly commercially (or if you are fussy) - it is.

[Wohoki]

Who is better placed to make the choice as to which spice to use and in what quantity than the person who is going to cook and eat the produce? The reason I make my own is that commercial producers don't buy the best spices (& I do), they have the desire to appeal to the broadest audience (I cook for eight people every day, and a dozen once or twice a week, so I know my market) and five pence a kilo is important to Franco, but it is trivial to me. Franco even sells loads of top-notch raw spices: buy a load and have a go.

The reason I make my own curry powder/masala/garam-masala/sausage seasoning is consistency. If I can munch a chilli or a pepper-corn I know what it tastes like, and that has to be better than relying on a taster at a factory tasting it for me.

[Oddley]

Hi aris I think we will have to ask sausagemaker if he has a spice blender employed with his firm.

To be honest I don't think this is the case. All the big spice suppliers, mix huge amounts of the same spice together, so all the little packets of spice you buy taste the same. I also think it is down to the spice supplier to mix and grade spice for consistency. I have noticed very little difference in spice batches since using the % system to make large batches of spices. If I had noticed a difference I would not have posted what I did. So my conclusion is, buy the same brands of spice you developed the spice mix with and you should be OK.

[Bangerboy]

Thanks for the replies guy.

Yes it was the sausage maker course that odley has linked.

The course itself was ok, but very basic. But it taught me enough to get started, and gave me the encouragement to find you guys. If you really have no knowledge of how to start , I guess its good.

They really pushed this electric mincer / sausage maker which I thought was good. And so I purchased one, its ok but not at all great, but its ok for now I guess.

But as I said I have tasted the mother in laws local butchers sausages and i prefer those to the ones that the course butcher made and indeed sell.

Mind you they use their own reared livestock on the course. So maybe that would make a difference in the taste.
But their sausage mixes are already mixed wirth rusk, and i think are a bit bland.

So I have just ordered some from this site along with rusk, and ill mix it myself as suggested.

I shall also check out the web page listed in 1st reply.

Many thanks

[welsh wizard]

HI Bangerboy - when you have given the mixes a go I would be interested to know how you found them and what mixes you have used, if that is possible? Cheers WW

[Bangerboy]

Yeah of course Wizard, no probs

I bought the cumberland one and the goan vindaloo to start with a small bag of rusk.

And ill let you know the results. hopefully ill get them by the weekend and let you know how they came out.

[jenny_haddow]

Hi bangerboy,

I've used Franco's mixes from the start and find them all very good. I like the Lincolnshire and the garlic and black pepper especially, although the sage and onion, and old English are good. They can be on the salty side so I never exceed the recommended amount, if I want more flavour I'll add extra herbs, spices etc, but never more of the mix because it makes it too salty for me.
If I remember rightly, I think the pork and apple mix has rusk in already.
Recently I've been making french sausages which have been really tasty and a great texture and used my own spice mix. Now I feel I've got to grips with the whole process I will probably continue creating my own mixes, mainly because I like to control the salt levels.
I need to make a new batch this weekend, I really look forward to it, great way to spend an afternoon.

Cheers

Jen

[aris]

Yes, it would be interesting to see if they employ a spice blender - or at least do some sort of quality control perhaps at the spice supplier side.

One other area of variation which requires skill to reproduce consistently is when spices have to be processed - for instance taking coriander seed and toasting it to give it a nutty flavour (several boerewors recipes call for this).

[sausagemaker]

Hi Oddley & Aris

Yes we have a large department of staff that solely look after the spice intake quality specifications and audit trails, we have higher certification from EFSIS & the Soil Association we have to be perfect in all respects of the business to achieve these standards & must prove this to a third party body inspectorate every year. I may add that while most other spice house's are the same in this respect in a recent audit for a major quality retailer we were the only spice house able to trace back all our ingredients to the area in which they were grown.

Wohoki is wrong in making the assumption that we do not buy the best spices on the contrary we will buy better that he is able as we are at the top of the pecking order before retail supplies after all they buy from spice house also,we need the best so that we can guarantee what you buy in June this year is the same June next year, no retailer will give you this guarantee, he is however correct in that we have to appeal to a wider audience & this is for no other reason that when we make up a batch it can be anything from 100kilos to 1 tonne and the end product will be sold world wide, it is only through the economy's of scale that the fair prices you pay are able to be achieved

Regards
Sausagemaker