Michael tries to make cured cased sausage for the first time!

[Porkies]

Wow! I was drooling by the time I got to the last post! Very nice sausages and very nice write-up. Thanks for sharing!

[Smoke em if you got em]

Great job! Especially for your first time. The texture and casing bind are right on. I always thought that Bradley using 2% Salt would be way too salty. Your thinking of 1.5% is more like it. If adding cheese, factor in its salt level too. Remember, you can always add more, but you can’t remove it once it’s in there. That’s what test patties are for. Congratulations on an awesome job! Welcome to your new obsession.

[Michael_in_TX]

Yep, definitely dialing back the salt to 1.5% for my versions of his recipes.

[Texas Larry]

Looks like a great first run. Inspiring me to get back at it.

[Michael_in_TX]

So it has been a few days and I've been munching on my first batch of sausage. Here are a few observations.....

The acrid flavor I mentioned seems to have disappeared. Perhaps it is the same phenomenon as letting smoked cheese mellow in the fridge, although it is odd that it went away so quickly.

14% cheese is way too much cheese. I needed to use just half of that. Also, I don't particularly care for this brand of high-temp cheddar (PS Seasonings). It's cheddar....but there is just a -- it's almost impossible to describe -- a weird taste to it. Or maybe it is because I just used so much of it. The bites of sausage that had no or little cheese are just amazing.

I also want to cut the salt down to 1.5-1.7%. I'll probably do 1.7%. I did 2% and this had cheese, which is probably too much salt.

The thing that is just so striking is the snap. Oh wow! No commercially made sausage I have ever had has had this kind of snap! I honestly may never buy sausage again.

So, what's in my future?

I want to do a summer sausage...classic and also perhaps jalapeño and cheese (but not too much cheese lol).

I want to do a non-cheese central Texas style beef+pork sausage and then make a jalapeño and cheese kolache out of it.

I've never been a huge fan of brats, or at least the brats at the grocery store. I want to try my hand at making my own and see how I like them then.

I'd also like to try my hand on making some pepperoni as well.

My biggest takeaway is that sausage making is a lot like brisket. It's utterly intimidating, but once you do your first batch, you wonder what the big deal was. But also like brisket....its the details that matter.

[PGH_RAM]

Hit me up when you're ready to try making brats. I'll post the recipe I use, which more than one person has told me is just like what they used to get when they lived in Germany. It's probably my favorite sausage to make.

[TripleB]

Getting into sausage making is fun. I generally make sausage for other dishes, like Sweet Italian for spaghetti, Andouille for gumbo, Brats for a summer party, Chorizo for chili, Linguisa with paella, etc. And I agree, once you've made sausage, the store-bought variety never measures up.

[TripleB]

PGH_RAM Please post your Brats recipe. I'm always on the lookout for upping my sausage game.