Had an itch to try this for some time now. To me this one is hard to understand and goes against the grain as far as cure #1 and cure #2 and my understanding of how they work :noidea:
So I asked a couple of questions from a good friend and fellow sausage maker and he has made it a few times. He said it is well worth it and just follow the recipe.
So here is the recipe if you want to check it out:
http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Bologna-Lebanon-sweet.pdf
Now this is just not a grind it, stuff it and smoke kind of deal where your done in a day. So far I have 24 hours into it from the grind. I have just finished stuffing the casings and they are going into a 48 hour nap @85F
After that I can give it a good heavy smoke.
I am still up in the air as to when these will be ready to eat, but I am sure something will tell me when they are done.
So here are some pics of the process so far.
Had 90/10 GB and ran it through my grinder with the smallest plate. This kind of gives it a emulsified look and feel. It got real sticky after the grind. It was still half frozen which is what you want, notice the GB chunks
Here you can see just how cold the meat was from the condensation on the throat of the grinder.
This is about 4 pounds ground up
All bagged up and off to the fridge to rest with the spices, cure and F-RM-52 culture
Stuffing time 24 hours later.
Lems bologna casings, these thing are so big I could have stuffed by hand
One down one to go
And here we have to 5 lbs twins
Off to my curing chamber where I can control the temp and R/H for 48 hours. . So now we wait @ 85F degrees
Been waiting to cut into those chubs for awhile and today was the day
Here we go
Final weight
The unpacking
Theres a pretty picture
OH my look at that
Just lovely
All cut up
close up
One chub all packaged
End pieces cooked up. Man was it good. I found it a bit on the sweet side with a tang. Hard to describe but yes it was a winner in my books. Could I taste the smoke you ask, yes it was there but not over powering?
Thanks for looking