Saturday was Kielbasa making day

Saturday was Kielbasa making day. It was actually a three day event as the meat has to sit overnight with the seasoning (massive amounts of garlic), and then again once its in the casings to allow the texture to stabilize.

But Saturday was when the fun stuff happened.

Friday

To stick with the theme of the sauerkraut I make (the simpler, the humbler, the better), I used just a few ingredients: Pork meat and fat, copious amounts of garlic, salt (curing salts, but not necessary if going to eat it soon afterwards, just cook/smoke it first), and pepper.

Other items used include a meat grinder with a sausage making attachment, and sausage casings. I used hog casings (soaked in water for at least an hour before using) but there are synthetic ones out there if the real ones gross you out.

Mise en place

I did this at 1am after a night on the town. Hence the obscene amount of garlic I used.

To paraphrase the Wild Chef, Martin Picard, "If you like garlic, use [23] cloves, if you don't like garlic, use [23] cloves".

The rule of thumb for sausage making is 70% meat, 30% fat. Pork shoulder happens to be a close approximation of this ratio so thats what I used for my first time, although in the future I think a combination of pork belly and bacon fat might make for some good eating.

I cubed the meat, added the garlic, salt, and pepper and let it sit, covered, in the fridge over night.

Saturday - Kielbasa making day.

How many Polacks/Ukranians (pukes) does it take to make Kielbasa?

The answer here is three. My brother and I as well as the grinder, which shared our family trait: Stubbornness. So we made it an honorary member.

We named the grinder Wojtek, after this bear. (Pronounced Voytek)

Wojtek!

I really wanted my brother to be a part of this first attempt at sausage which was lucky, because he did too, and it was handy having another head around to work out the first time kinks. 

I have an electric automatic grinder, so after having worked out all the kinks, this whole process can probably be done solo in the future, but It sure makes it easier, and more fun to have two people involved. I like the Italians take on cooking: Get the family and your friends in the kitchen, make a day of it and have some fun.

Here goes nothing

The first kink we ran into was the plating size. There is a plate that sits in front of the blade on the grinder that determines the grain size of the meat once its ground. Wojtek has three of these plates: coarse, middle and fine grain. I used the middle one initially which clogged up the grinder nicely.

 
After two un-cloggings and some shared frustration, Gabe figured out that we were using the wrong plate. Basically, while he was cleaning what he thought to be the only plate, he noticed that I had another one rigged up on the machine and was ready to go.

We put the coarse plate on, turned the machine back on and high fived as it cut through the meat and fat like butter.

NOTE: Pay attention to all components of your grinder as well as which are removable, and which aren't.

Once ground, we put the meat back in the freezer to cool. Then, we passed it through the grinder again, this time through the middle plate.

Once ground, we put a bit on a pan and sautee'd it to check the flavour and seasoning: Salty, peppery, moist, and tons of garlic. Perfect.

We put the meat in the freezer to cool again while we put the sausage making attachment on the grinder, and then put the casings on the attachment. You want to roll the entire length of the casings onto the attachment.

Yep, that's hog intestines, stretch out over the sausage making attachment. Sex Education program designers, get a hold of me if you want demonstrations of this for your classes.

Kink number 2: Besides some trial and error to get the right size and shape, feeding the meat through the sausage attachment and into the casings was going well, just really slow. We realized that the meat was not just passing through the machine, attachment and then into the casings, it was also passing through the blade, and that troublesome plate.

We removed the plate and blade and then the rest of the operation went off without a problem.

NOTE: Pay attention to all components of your grinder as well as which are removable, and which aren't.

Not hard to determine which end is the start (trial and error) and end (figured it out) of the Kielbasa

We put it in the fridge to rest over night.

Sunday

Ideally I would smoke this to give it that unmistakable flavour, and colour, but I don't have one. So I just baked it at a low temperature until my thermometer read an internal temperature of 170 F or 77 C.

I've been wanting to make sausage for a few years now and while there is definitely some room for improvement, I'm a very proud and happy camper today.

Tips to keep in mind:

• Pay attention to all components of your grinder as well as which are removable, and which aren't. x 2
• Keep the meat cool by putting it in the freezer for 15-20min before grinding it and again between each step; grinding the meat heats it up and the fat cells can burst, compromising the taste and texture of the sausage.
• Hold the casing on the attachment (like pinching a balloon to control the amount of air that flows out) while the sausage is feeding into it, until you get the desired size and shape of sausage, then allow it to feed through again. Otherwise you will have irregular sausage size, and you'll go through your casings too quickly.
• Allow sausage to feed through to the end of the sausage attachment before putting the casings on to avoid air pockets. I didn't realize this until it was too late, but a snip of the casings, and tying it with butchers twine was an easy enough solution.

For no real reason, I give you the other Wojtek!

- Maciej