My New Sausage Maker
John Liu
10 months ago
last modified: 10 months ago
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Canning ad from Sausage Maker
Comments (2)The company did change owners quite some time ago, and more recently have been quite helpful in my need for grinding plates for my meat grinder. I now have a collection of plates to grind to almost any size. The price of the pressure canner is a bit higher than elsewhere (Amazon). Same issue with the stainless steel meat mixer, which I bought from Northern Tool for just $100. It will last me forever. Their sausage kits are good....See MoreMeat curing and sausage making
Comments (45)Another post that is now public: I would like to make to a kind of Italian sausage (what else would a Jersey girl make) with the pork and venision -- I don't have a smoker... any suggestions? My reply: OK, start with lots of garlic, and you can even add things like rosemary, oregano, thyme, sweet peppers, onion, and even cheese. The onion and peppers I use are dried and don't add more water. The cheese I use is a high melting point cheddar that's cubed, available from one of my sources. All these are also available from the sausage making suppliers. If you like fennel seeds, add that too with a little anise seed. When I do fennel, I grind some in a small coffee grinder and use some whole as well. Also, ground black pepper and coriander are useful as is sage (easy on sage, its hot spicy). I use fresh and dried garlic and any recipe that calls for it I usually double or triple that amount. If the venison is gamey tasting, you can also add a little ground up juniper berries. They take away some gamey taste, but go easy. Italian sausages are usually all pork, no beef, but as mentioned, salami and pepperoni are OK with beef, and pork or venison, as is summer sausages. Things like hot dogs and bologna are pureed meat with cereal or soy added. For a smoky taste, I use liquid smoke. They sell small bottles of Wrights Liquid smoke in some supermarkets near steak sauces, but I usually buy a half gallon bottle from a sausage maker supplier and use maybe 2-3 tablespoons on a 10 pound batch, unless I want a lot of smoky taste. I also make a really good Canadian bacon that uses a whole boneless pork loin. I get a ham or bacon brine cure mixture and inject it into the pork. Then I place the injected pork in a big vacuum tight vessel and fill it with the brine and pull a vacuum on it for 1-2 days. THis last time, I added some maple syrup to give it a special tang. It too gets liquid hickory smoke flavor. Baked slowly at 200 degrees about 6 hours. Cooled, chilled and sliced. Then, I use a Food Saver machine to pack small amounts of it. Store cost about $6+ a pound, my cost under $2.00 a pound!! I have a decent digital scale that also weighs grams. I use Nitrites in all my sausages as they are not completely done in a refrigerated environment like they do commercially. The Nitrite amounts are tiny and that's what gives cold cuts their red color. They are tinted pink and are mixed with salt, so the ratio is easier and more accurate to measure. That's the main reason I don't use Morton Tender Quick, as you have little control if its added too much. I make pastrami out of corned beef, but simply coating them before they are slowly baked. A year ago, I made about 40 pounds of pepperoni and salami each, and the were not only baked very slowly (8 hours at under 200 degrees), but also dry cured for about a month at room temps and refrigerated. I used fibrous casings that are not edible, as I stuff these casings very tightly with the meats. Using edible collagen or fresh casings will burst if I were to use them. So, when I want to slice the salami and pepperoni I peel it first. I gave some to a kid who though it was a bit tough, until I asked him if he has peeled it beforehand.. DUH!! I have a professional meat slicer too as well as some vacuum systems I use to marinate and do a little home canning with. As mentioned, after mixing and before stuffing, cook a tiny sample and taste to see if it suits your taste buds....See MoreI am in my new house, my new kitchen... BUT...
Comments (17)One way to handle putting an old self into a larger new kitchen is to draw a smaller old kitchen inside of it. All those things that used to live in the den? Or the basement? Or on the high shelves of the kids' closets? Those are still your least used things. It's great to be able to store them in the kitchen now, but you don't want to have the Christmas dishes and turkey roaster and martini glasses between you and the action. As much as you can, put the stuff you use the most away first, and do it in the tightest workflow area you can, best at point of use, designing your point of use at the closest comfortable place to the previous and next steps in the cooking process. If there's room leftover in your working path--like whole empty shelves or drawers, you can put in some of the least used stuff that makes sense in that location (roaster in the cooking zone, etc.) and put the rest of the overage in the more outlying areas, pantry, wherever isn't blocking you from using your kitchen efficiently. I think Buehl has winter dishes in her dish area because there was room (and she has a very efficient kitchen), but if you can tighten up your workspace by putting the Christmas china out, do it! And swap it in at Christmas time, if you use it all day for a month....See MoreCabinet maker wants to store my cabs in my house
Comments (18)OP wrote that she said she'd be ready in "a few months", which does not mean two months. A couple of months means two months. IMO, the cabinet maker should have called prior to building and looked at his schedule and scheduled accordingly. He knows how much room he has in his shop! OP does not. IF he was just 'not busy' in January and knew he had other kitchens coming up and would rather work on OP's cabinets anyway rather than delay, then he should be responsible for storing those cabinets if she does not want to or can not store them. OP's cabinet maker is surely aware of the pitfalls in time management. He knows that working with DIY is totally different than working with professional builders that can give a spot on date that cabinets would be needed in a project. If I were the cabinet maker, Plan A would be to ask OP to store them, too. If she said no, then I'd go on to plan B, which would be my responsibility. We all like to save money. You just have to decide how much you trust you are willing to put into all of the responsibility factor should you assume it....See MoreJohn Liu
10 months agoIslay Corbel
10 months agoHU-547125811
10 months agolast modified: 10 months agoHU-547125811
10 months agolast modified: 10 months agoannie1992
10 months ago
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