grainy texture

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grainy texture

Postby enstorm » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:43 pm

I made some pork shoulder sausage using a 3/8" plate. The texture was sort of grainy, slightly crumbly. As was fresh I cooked it in water and fried for a bit too. Would a smaller plate and or more fat help make a smoother texture? The cut was pretty lean, I added at least 20% more fat to it. Thanks
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Re: grainy texture

Postby BriCan » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:02 pm

enstorm wrote:I made some pork shoulder sausage using a 3/8" plate. The texture was sort of grainy, slightly crumbly. As was fresh I cooked it in water and fried for a bit too. Would a smaller plate and or more fat help make a smoother texture? The cut was pretty lean, I added at least 20% more fat to it. Thanks


Using a 1/8" plate for your second mince/grind will help a lot with the texture

Your fat to lean in my opinion is no problem, being course and crumbly sounds there might be over cooking??.
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Postby enstorm » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:10 pm

thanks
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Postby tristar » Thu Jan 20, 2011 7:35 am

Some pictures would help, but I think we are looking at an issue of lack of primary bind, just google it and you will find lots of information.
The reason I suggest pictures is because peoples definition of grainy or slightly crumbly can vary, it is much easier to give a correct answer if we can actually see the problem. Did you keep your meat and fat chilled whilst grinding?

If the meat was sufficiently cold, you could as Brican suggests, grind again through a smaller plate, this would help as not only does this make the texture finer, it does increase the amount of water soluble proteins availabe to entrap the fats. If you prefer a more coarse textured sausage you could simply work the chilled forcemeat by kneading with your hands for a few minutes until it becomes sticky, this has the same effect as mincing again as far as the water soluble proteins are concerned, and creates a binding protein coating on the meat and fats but leaves you with a coarser textured product, but one which hold together.

To summarise, the three things of critical importance to achieve good texture in a simple honest to goodness sausage with no fillers, chemicals etc, nothing more than meat, fat and seasonings are:

1, Sufficient salt in the seasoning, as this helps to solubilise the water soluble meat proteins, which entrap the fats and meat, preventing then from cooking out.
2, Cold, as this ensures that the meat fats do not smear and create too large a surface area for the proteins to coat,.
3, Working the seasoned meat mixture, as this is where the process of extracting the water soluble proteins and then using them to coat the fats and meats takes place.


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Postby captain wassname » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:42 am

Could be a mixing problem you need to mix thoroughly and keep everything cold.If your hands dont hurt when your finished youve not done a proper job

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