Polska kiełbasa wędzona

[rgreenberg2000]

Made up a small batch (2000g) of a new (to me) recipe from meatsandsausages.com (https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... hot-smoked). I used the recipe as a guide, but made a few changes along the way:

- 850g shoulder, 150g belly fat (the shoulder was lean)
- Unexpectedly out of marjoram, used thyme
- Ground meat/fat through 7mm plate
- Smoked six hours @ ~140F, then poached to finish to 154F

It's a simple recipe, but these are very frequently the best. I just had a taste link sliced up straight out of the fridge, and I think this is the best sausage I've ever made. Balanced salt and spices, and a great snap to the casing. I think the latter is definitely a result of smoke then poach....very different final texture in the casing than smoking all the way through. Really good stuff!

[redzed]

Congrats! Looks mighty darned tasty. And you are right, often less is better. Next time you make this sausage you can adjust the spice and garlic amounts to tweak it better to you personal preferences. The recipe in the 1959 compendium on which Marianski based his version asks for 40% Class I pork (lean, no connective tissue) and 60% Class II pork (up to 40% fat allowed). The lean meat is groun with a larger diameter plate than the fatty meat. But often when we are making smaller amounts, we don't have the luxury of using exact amounts from different classes. The process that I would recommend if you want to crank it up a few notches is to cure your meats for 48-72 hours before grinding and stuffing. You will have a better bind, colour and a more flavourful sausage.

[rgreenberg2000]

The process that I would recommend if you want to crank it up a few notches is to cure your meats for 48-72 hours before grinding and stuffing. You will have a better bind, colour and a more flavourful sausage.

Thanks, Red, love the additional information! I keep meaning to cure the meat for a couple of days before grinding and stuffing, but I have yet to plan things out that well. This opportunity to carve out some time for sausage making didn't give me that luxury.

Not sure I will change too much on the spices. Maybe a bit more garlic, and I'd like to make it with the marjoram that's called for next time.

Rich

[Butterbean]

Looks terrific.

[Scogar]

Rich, how does the sous vide wand hold up to this? I saw your pic and thought it would be a great use to get my sausage bath to 170°F but with the greasy water recirculating through the wand does it create problems? Longevity? Cleaning? etc. I have been hesitant to go sous vide because of plastic but your use avoids that

thanks
Scott

[rgreenberg2000]

Rich, how does the sous vide wand hold up to this? I saw your pic and thought it would be a great use to get my sausage bath to 170°F but with the greasy water recirculating through the wand does it create problems? Longevity? Cleaning? etc. I have been hesitant to go sous vide because of plastic but your use avoids that

thanks
Scott

No problem at all, Scott, I've been doing it for a while. All of the submerged components of the Anova wand are stainless steel, and clean up easily after poaching. I just rinse it in very hot water straight away, and scrub as needed with soap/water. You can remove the outer sleeve that covers the impeller if you need to do a deeper cleaning.

Depending on your usual sausage batch size, and how large of a kettle you have, that should probably drive how powerful of a heat stick you need. When I use my larger kettle, I will heat the water to 170F on the stove, then use the Anova to keep it there once the sausage goes in (well, actually, I pre-heat to 175F since the temp will drop when the sausage goes in.)

Hope that helps!

R

[Scogar]

Thanks Rich, it helps a great deal. My research was about a year ago or maybe more. At the time it was based around cooking in bags...I later just decided to hold off. Figured I didn't need to add any more plastics to my insides and just wasn't completely convinced the meat in a bag wouldn't do just that. But trying to keep temp on the stove is not fun and this trick would be perfect as you obviously already know.

What amount of water do you think your stick could hold at 170? Is 5 gallons way too much? 10 gallons? I'll look on line as well maybe this is one of the specs they publish. Cleaning sounds reasonable

[Scogar]

Asked and answered. It looks like yours can hold about 5 gal at temp....https://anovaculinary.com/sous-vide-container-guide/ and keeping it insulated can go a long way too. Looks like a rabbit hole I'll have to revisit.

Thanks again,
Scott

[rgreenberg2000]

Yeah, Scott, 5 gallons is probably about the max. I have found with my larger kettle that my volume of water vs my usual batch size of sausage, it still works fine. If I get that mass of water up to 175F, it only takes about 10-12 minutes for the sausage to hit 154F, and the stick keeps everything at 165-170F temp. Obviously, changes to either batch size, water volume, or both would change all that. I rarely do anything larger than 5lbs at a time (I like variety), so it works well for me.

R

[redzed]

Scott, I have been using a sous vide circulator for years in poaching sausage. But I also use it with the help of one of those cheap portable induction heaters. I put a pot of hot water on the heater and set it at 80C. Then I attach the circulator to the side of the pot and also set it at 80C. Works perfect, no hot spots in the pot and the sausage cooks evenly. I started off with the basic Anova, but now use a Chinese no-name with a stronger heating element, 1500w. No damage to the circulators so far.

[Scogar]

This is great info. Surprising the simple things we can miss without having a great forum to see how others handle similar issues