A smoked sausage primer: Klobása Údené

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   From HOSER @ FOTW:

 Every now and then we old timers tend to get a little bit ahead of ourselves in this forum, so before I started my project this week I looked around and found that we really didn't have a thread showing the basics of sausage making. A thread where a total novice could come in, take a look and decide whether or not they were ready to give it a shot. 

That is why this thread on Kolbása Údené, a Slovakian smoked sausage is done in fairly good detail and picture heavy to help any new folks who may happen along and be intrigued by some of the sausage recipes on the forum.

I started off with a recipe sent to me by Tasunkawitko who simply didn't have the time to do it, but it sounded so good I just had to give it a shot.

This is a basic smoked sausage and that means there is cure in it..Insta-cure #1 aka Prague powder..pink salt (sodium nitrite and salt) which is used at a rate of 1 tsp per 5 pounds of ground meat. The cure is used to prevent botulism which can grow when safe temperatures are not reached expediently 40° to 140° in four hours. The smoking process can be quite long depending on many factors, so one must  use cure when making a smoked sausage.

I started out with two pork shoulders...one Boston Butt and one picnic shoulder...trimmed them a bit and cut the meat into nice sized chunks for my grinding attachment for my mixer.

Once I cubed them meat, I put it into the freezer for a short while....it is much easier to grind when the meat is almost frozen, and easier on your grinder as well...then just got busy and ground it all through my 3/8" grinding plate.

When I get my grinding done, if I'm not going to mix right away, I weigh the ground meat very carefully (this is very  important) and put it into ziplock bags and label them with the type of meat and weight. This will make it much easier on you later when you mix, and have to be exact with the amount of cure you use. The proper amount of inst-cure #1 to ground meat is one level teaspoon for five pounds of meat. This particul;ar grind left me with two bags of meat...one 5 pound bag and one 7 pound 3 ounce bag.

If the ground meat looks a bit fatty to you....that's because it it...about 30% fat to 70% meat....not a bad ratio flavor wise, although some recipes call for 35 to 40 %.

The meat then goes back into the fridge to stay safe while my spices are measured out carefully.

Another thing you'll need to mix most sausages is ice cold water....I like to use two cups of ice water for a batch this size 10 lb, and I prefer to mix all my spices, seasonings and cure with the water for better distribution.

Now we mix the living daylights out of it, and when we're sure we have it right, it goes back into the fridge overnight so the cure can do it's job, and all of the rest of the flavors can get to know one another.

And then the real fun begins!
Obviously, you'll need casings to stuff the sausage into. In this case I'm using 40mm pre-tubed hog casings. pre-tubed casings are usually a bit more expensive, but well worth it...they slide onto the stuffing tube like a dreams you don't waste time trying to thread 30 or 40 feet of loose casing onto it...that can be a real pain. These casings were purchased online from Butcher-Packer...I also highly recommend the Syracuse Casing Co. for their products.

First we soak the casings overnight (while the sausage is curing) to soften them up for easier use.

The next morning we set up the stuffer...this is a five pound model, which can be purchase for under 100 bucks at many different places...I highly recommend you get one rather than fighting trying to stuff them with a mixer or grinder. The clamps you see come into play if you are working alone and don't have someone to hold the stuffer and crank it for you. You'll also notice it comes with three different stuffing tubes...we will be using the large tube for this size casing.

One more thing to do before we begin to stuff...a fry pan test to make sure no other seasonings are needed...take a small amount, fry it up and give it a try....I was quite pleased with the taste of this one, so nothing more was added.

Now we wet down the tube with some water and then slide the pre-tubed casing on.

The we work the casing all onto the tube and slide the plastic strip out from the inside, and we are ready to go.

Just tie a knot in the end of the casing and crank it out.

As you make the sausage, you'll wnt to link it before it gets too unruly....it's quite simple. Just pinch the casing where you want the link and twist the sausage to the right 3 or 4 turns.

The pinch it again and this time twist to the left 3 or 4 turns....continue with this method until you have it all linked.

Then back into the fridge until you are ready to smoke it.

Now my friends, I'll show you exactly what not  to do! Do not be in a hurry like I was today...normally we hang the sausage in front of a fan until the casings are nice and dry before smoking it....below you will see the results when this step is omitted...thought I'd let the casings dry in the smoker instead, and I paid the price. Sausage will not take smoke evenly unless the casing is nice and dry...nothing wrong with the sausage at all, it's very tasty, but just not too visually appealing.

Here it is going into the smoker with the Amaz-n-smoker fired up

I cold smoked it for four hours and then lt the smoker and brought the sausage to 152° slowly, then gave it a cold water bath until the temp dropped to 90°.

This is the result when you try to rush things and don't complete and important step.

Then hang your sausage to "bloom" in a convenient place...when it reaches the color you're looking for, shrink wrap it and refrigerate or freeze.

It's as simple as that...I would encourage each and every one of you to try it if you have not done so already.

Edited by TasunkaWitko