Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Beginners FAQ on sausage making, meat curing etc may often be found at the head of each relevant section, but here is the place to ask experienced users for advice if you are still stuck or need more information...we're here to help!

Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby wheels » Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:50 pm

I'm not saying that the report isn't valid, but it starts with the position of wanting to persuade hornery butchers to do something differently, a difficult task no doubt! It then uses the taste tests to support its own position.

For example it ignores the fact that people said that sausage made the old way had twice the flavour saying that this just refers to the strength of taste not the depth. Sorry, twice the flavour is still no good?

It's aim is to make preservatives more effective - I don't know any home producers that use these. It's aim is to get salt levels below 1.4% - the majority of ours are well below this without difficulty.

They've missed that the easy way to make good sausage is to allow the myosin to develop naturally by adding the salt to the diced meat the night before grinding. I'm currently working on a number of recipes to remove the salt from the spice block so that it can be calculated/applied separately.

I guess I'm agreeing with its ethos, I must be as I'm doing what they set out to achieve already, it's just that I prefer our way of achieving it rather than theirs.

This is part of an FSA campaign. Why they're targeting smaller butchers is anyone's guess it's their buddies in the multinationals they need to be speaking to. The best selling UK sausage has 2.2gm per 100g cooked product. Getting Irish food giant Kerry foods to alter this would have a major effect overnight... ...but do they? Do they squat!

A simple regulation added to food laws would solve this overnight if the will was there, no need for all these fancy schemes.

Phil
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:40 pm

All very good points and to be honest I was not saying the paper is correct also...just found it interesting. I actually calculated the salt content in my recipes which turn out to be around 1.25/1.3% of total sausage weight.

I may try making the paste this weekend though...I've got a big batch to make and in particular I found the Lincolnshire to be a bit light on taste so i'll see if it makes a difference.

The last point I'll make on adding water to rusk first is that I've found the rusk doesn't seem to absorb all the water and I had some dry rusk in my sausage...my thinking then was to try and avoid this I could add the water to the rusk first.
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby wheels » Sat Jan 13, 2018 1:03 am

Do whatever works for you. There is no correct way. If it makes a good product then that's what we want.

But please report back here; nobody's that clever that they can't learn from others.

Phil
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby wheels » Sat Jan 13, 2018 3:39 pm

Just to add. I cam across this today:

An enterprising firm has now placed on the market a liquid seasoning for sausages...


The quote is from Frank Gerrard's book 'Sausage and Small Goods'. Mine's the 1951 edition. It just shows, there's very little that's new!

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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:20 pm

wheels wrote:Just to add. I cam across this today:

An enterprising firm has now placed on the market a liquid seasoning for sausages...


The quote is from Frank Gerrard's book 'Sausage and Small Goods'. Mine's the 1951 edition. It just shows, there's very little that's new!

Phil


Probably where DCC got their idea from :-)

I tried using the paste method this weekend...havent tried the end product yet but the seasoning seemed to mix a bit better than dry.
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:08 pm

Posting an update:

I used the paste method and it came out just as good flavor as dry seasoning...if anything was easier to mix in.

On the question of water/rusk...I did some with adding dry rusk to the meat and some with adding water to the rusk before adding to the meat mix.
I see now why adding the water to the rusk first causes problems....when done this way the rusk became clumpy and was difficult to evenly distribute through the mix. The finished product also had some rusk clumps in it which wasn't bad but not perfect.

Finally I found that my home made rusk took about 1.75>2 parts water. One thing I did notice though was that my sausages were still damp on the outside after hanging for 24hrs...should I be concerned and maybe reduce my water contetnt?
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby wheels » Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:31 pm

That's great to know. Thanks for posting the results.

I use 1 part rusk to 1.5 parts water for homemade, so yours must have been good and dry.

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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:53 pm

wheels wrote:That's great to know. Thanks for posting the results.

I use 1 part rusk to 1.5 parts water for homemade, so yours must have been good and dry.

Phil


Rusk was really dry...pretty much followed Scott Rea's way of doing it which works well.

Only thing I cant get is a consistent size to the rusk when put it the processor, either comes out very fine or too large.
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby SimonSez » Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:01 pm

Quovardis wrote:Rusk was really dry...pretty much followed Scott Rea's way of doing it which works well.

Only thing I cant get is a consistent size to the rusk when put it the processor, either comes out very fine or too large.


I had the same problem when I made my own rusk as well. I ended up passing it through a sieve and then grinding the coarse left overs, repeated a number of times.
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Wed Jan 31, 2018 7:54 pm

SimonSez wrote:
Quovardis wrote:Rusk was really dry...pretty much followed Scott Rea's way of doing it which works well.

Only thing I cant get is a consistent size to the rusk when put it the processor, either comes out very fine or too large.


I had the same problem when I made my own rusk as well. I ended up passing it through a sieve and then grinding the coarse left overs, repeated a number of times.


Exactly what Ive done...just takes forever to get them all down to the size so they can go through a sieve
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby wheels » Wed Jan 31, 2018 8:14 pm

Try grinding it while it's still warm, I find that the best, but there are still varying sizes. I add it dry and after mixing there's never any showing in the finished product.

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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Wed Jan 31, 2018 10:54 pm

wheels wrote:Try grinding it while it's still warm, I find that the best, but there are still varying sizes. I add it dry and after mixing there's never any showing in the finished product.

Phil


Also tried that last time :-)

Ended up with allot of moisture and clogging up the food processor (using a Ninja)....I'll keep plugging away at it but I agree that it should show up when mixed and the soaks up moisture.
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby wheels » Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:25 pm

There's something I'm missing here. I've never have a problem with home-made rusk. I grind the meat, put the rusk on top, the spice mix on top of that, add the water, mix to develop myosin then stuff.

I wonder if you're not cooking the rusk enough? Do you split it and open the two halves mid-way during cooking it?

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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:15 pm

wheels wrote:There's something I'm missing here. I've never have a problem with home-made rusk. I grind the meat, put the rusk on top, the spice mix on top of that, add the water, mix to develop myosin then stuff.

I wonder if you're not cooking the rusk enough? Do you split it and open the two halves mid-way during cooking it?

Phil


For rusk I mix the flour/water/baking power > roll to 1/4" > bake 10 mins at 400F > take out and cut into 1/2" slices > reduce temp to 350F > keep turning every 10 mins until dried out (may even leave in oven overnight with no heat) > put through a food processor to "grind" when cooled > sieve smaller particles > keep processing the bigger

I also tried putting the sticks into the processor while still warm but it left condensation in the processor and seemed to clump together as a result
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Re: Beginners questions on British Pork Sausage

Postby Quovardis » Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:19 pm

The only real problem is getting the rusk to a size around "pin head"..... its either too fine or large.

Just difficult to be able to control it.... quite honestly Ive stopped being a perfectionist and use it at the size it comes out at
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