Homemade Sausage Making

About to make my annual batch of chili powder for friends and family and was wondering if anyone would like me to do a step by step and post the recipe I use.

I use this powder in quite a few sausages as well as for the obvious use.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

Yes please post the recipe, I was given a bag of dried (whole) Chilies by a friend, have been grinding them bit by bit for stew.
911 is on my speed dial and comes in handy when I use the ground product.

I know that there is more to chili powder than chilis. But I buy a package of every variety of dried chilis in the store and dry them until they are as crispy as a potato chip, stem and seed them and mill them in the food processor. That works well for the chilis but what do we add for the rest of the flavor?

I'm always interested in more spice blends.

I'll download the pics tomorrow and post... 437.5 sneezes, 1/2 a bottle of crown, barbacoa, and pinto beans have me WHOOPED (tired for my friends across the pond).

I'll also post the recipe and some hints as well.

Charlie

I'll download the pics tomorrow and post...

We're holding you to your promise Cranky!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

post your recipe, I have several bags of dried and smoked peppers ready to grind

Well, now that I've had a few hours sleep, and the hangover doesn't seem too bad, I can begin.

This recipe is one that I found several years ago on the web and have added different peppers/spice combinations until I got just the right heat and flavor. Works GREAT in hotlinks and some other types of sausages.

The peppers I use are ones that I can get locally here from a Hispanic food market. You can use whatever peppers you decide to, or have on hand, just follow the Scoville chart to see where your peppers fall in the heat range and adjust from there.

Scoville Scale is here

This is the base line version of the recipe. Last night I did this times 8 and ended up with 12 cups of powder.

3 oz. Guajillo peppers
3 oz. Ancho peppers
1 oz. Arbol peppers
2.5 Tbs. ground cumin (toast the seed then grind BEFORE adding to the mix)
2.5 Tbs. garlic powder
1.5 Tbs. Mexican oregano (Mexican is best, but any dried oregano will work)
1/2 Tbs. Smoked Mexican paprika

Go ahead and put all of your required seasonings into a bowl so they can be ready when you need them later. Notice I pre-ground my toasted cumin seed.




Deseed all peppers and toss out the seeds. If the larger peppers are not real dry you may need to split them in half so they will toast well. If you have sensitive hands you'll need to wear gloves at this point, if not you can get blisters from the capsaicin. DO NOT touch your eyes or mouth before washing your hands, it will hurt badly.

Lay the peppers out on a cookie sheet and place into an oven that has been pre-heated to 300 degrees f. for about 12 minutes with the larger peppers, the arbol peppers will only need about 5-6 minutes.




DO NOT LET THE PEPPERS BEGIN TO SCORCH! The house will fill with a smoke that will burn your eyes, make you cough, and will have the wife filing for divorce! It also makes your powder bitter.

After toasting all of the peppers place them into a large3 container to completely cool. I use one of my sausage mixing totes.


Then add peppers to a good blender, put on the top, and grind until you get a powder. A full blender of dried peppers makes a SMALL amount of powder...




Dump the ground powder after each blend into a small sieve to separate the chunks of stuff that didn't grind.


Keep at it until you are down to your last blender full of peppers. At that time add in all of your spices before grinding.


Once you have all of the peppers ground and have sifted everything it's time to mix, mix, mix. You want to make sure that you get everything mixed really well to have a good even distribution of the seasonings.

Let me know if you have any questions.

ENJOY!

Charlie

I forgot to mention that this powder is PERFECT for the sausage maker's "leftovers".

Last weekend I made ~ 40 pounds of sausage and had 3 pork butt bones left over so I froze them for later use.

Last night I soaked 2# of pinto beans in some beef stock left over from making barbacoa, and then this morning I added some chili powder and the bones to the beans. They are simmering now and the house smells great!

Charlie

Besides not touching your eyes with your fingers during this effort wash your hands very well before you make any pit stops.

ssorllih wrote:Besides not touching your eyes with your fingers during this effort wash your hands very well before you make any pit stops.

Definitely follow that advice!

Try explaining that one to the Dr.

Forgot to add this pic earlier. This is how the powder looks after you dump the last batch that includes the seasonings. This is a good example of why you need to mix mix mix...



As you can see, there is a big difference between just the pepper powder and the final seasoning blend.

Charlie

Thank you Charlie,

The combination of spices sounds like a very flavorful chili and seasoning blend.

I will have to take a tour through some Supermarkets and a Hispanic store here and list what chilies they sell, then compare to the chart.

One question please, the weight you give for the Chilies, is that after seeding but before toasting?

I think you'll like the flavor.

Sorry about the confusion, I should have said weight after stemming and seeding, but prior to toasting.

Hope it works well for you.

Charlie

Great Stuff Chaaaalie!
How about givin' it a name so I can put it in the index. What are you going to call it?
Thanks for sharing your recipe. I looks terrific.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Well, heck... I have no clue... Cranky's easy chili powder?

Know you CW, you'll come up with something for me!

This is a simple recipe...

Charlie