Checking in from SF Bay Area

[rgreenberg2000]

I've lurked here off and on for quite a while, and thought that now would be a good time to come out of the shadows. A few years ago, I got really interested in doing some dry curing, but got sidetracked with an adventure into making cheese. Turns out that wasn't really as interesting to me as I thought it was, so a bunch of batches of fresh and smoked sausages later, I have just put my first coppas into the cure. I've got a small (counter height'ish) wine fridge that I'll be using as a curing chamber (used to be my beer fermentation fridge, after which it was my cheese cave.) I'm pretty well set for good sausage gear (famous last words) with a #12 Carnivore grinder and a couple of vertical stuffers (7qt Enterprise, and a 15lb Omcan), plus a RecTeq pellet grill for smoking. I'm looking forward to participating here and soaking up the collective wisdom!

Just a couple of recent projects as an intro......

Spanish-style chorizo and a Polish Slaska (Len Poli):



My first summer sausage (also Len Poli):



Proceeds of a sausage weekend (breakfast sausage in front):



I'll be back with questions, I'm sure, and, hopefully some pics of some successful coppa!

Cheers,
Rich

[redzed]

Hey Rich welcome to the Forum! Very nice work for a beginner, those sausages are the cat's meow! Did you fully follow Poli's recipe making the Śląska?

I also look forward to seeing your adventures in dry curing. A bit of a learning curve but certainly worth the effort and a lot of fun.

[Butterbean]

Welcome and nice looking products. Am toying with the idea of making some summer sausages myself shortly and you've bumped me.

[rgreenberg2000]

Hey Rich welcome to the Forum! Very nice work for a beginner, those sausages are the cat's meow! Did you fully follow Poli's recipe making the Śląska?

I also look forward to seeing your adventures in dry curing. A bit of a learning curve but certainly worth the effort and a lot of fun.

Thanks for the welcome! I did not follow the recipe for Śląska exactly. I used his ratios for the meats, and the spices, but skipped the pickling step. I did smoke and poach them after drying per the recipe, and prefer the tenderness of the casing with this method rather than smoking to completion. Both times that I have done this recipe, I didn't have time to plan ahead to allow for the three day picklingstep, so I guess this is my version of Poli's Śląska. It's a somewhat mild sausage the way I have made it, but one that I really like.

This weekend, I'm making a 5lb batch of jalapeno/cheddar sausage that my daughter likes (coming home from school), and will maybe do a few links of andouille depending on how much meat I end up with.

Rich

[rgreenberg2000]

Welcome and nice looking products. Am toying with the idea of making some summer sausages myself shortly and you've bumped me.

Thanks for the welcome! I fought some slime issues with the summer sausage, but kind of muscled through it without knowing if that was a sign things were going terribly wrong. Everything ended up just fine, but I obviously lost complete control of the humidity with my very uncontrolled setup. I turned out just fine, very flavorful, with that summer sausage tang (without even using a culture at all.) I need to work on my technique for filling the fibrous casings as I had some (very small) voids, but pretty good for the first time! I'm sure the next time will go better!

Cheers,
Rich