Sausage making, again

OK, so I found a butt that looked decent and I set about cutting it up. I found this site that seems to explain things well and they had this lovely picture

This made a lot of sense to me - to cut up the meat by how much fat is had, taking the stuff with no fat and separating it. On the page about grinding, they say, "The lean meat should be separated from the fat. As a rule, lean meat is ground coarsely, while fatty cuts are ground very finely. This way our sausage is lean-looking and the fat is hidden, although a sufficient amount still exists. It is much easier to grind cold meat taken directly out of the refrigerator (32 – 35 F), especially the fat, which is much easier to handle when partially frozen. The fat is usually ground through a plate with very small holes and it should be partially frozen before grinding it, otherwise you will get a smeared paste."

So, my meat is cut up and I've taken a lunch break, so it's in the freezer while I type this.

QUESTION: why do we remove veins? Most of the ones I found were very tiny and in the fat. Is it taste, texture, or just that we find it icky to have veins in our sausage?

QUESTION 2: what about silvering? I removed it when I found it. It seems so tough. But, is it ground up and not a problem? Maybe I am taking too long to cut up my butt.

So, on to grinding.

WOW. That is a lot of work. We never went to the trouble of separating lean meat from fat, much less grinding the meat and fat to different sizes.

In answer to question #1: Did your directions say remove the veins? We never do that, so I'm not sure what the point is.

Same for #2: I don't recall ever removing the silvering, either. I would assume that grinding the meat would take care of any issue with toughness, but I could be wrong.

Whenever we cut/grind our own meat, we basically just cut the butt into long, 1-inch strips and feed the strips into the grinder. No separating or cubing. The fat ratio in a butt is basically what you want for the types of sausage I usually make (3 parts meat to 1 part fat), so there's no reason for the extra work.

I see I'm posting this a bit late to be of any help...how'd it go? Any pics?

Like crrush, I never remove the veins. Silver skin, if it's significant, I will remove.

I find that butt can sometimes be too lean for sausage making and can sometimes lead to crumbly sausage with poor definition. As such, I usually grind about 1/2 pound of fatback in with each 5 pounds of butt. I buy 5-pound slabs of fatback from Niman Ranch, cut them into 1/2-pound bars, vacuum seal them and store them in the freezer. When it's sausage time, I just take a bar out of the freezer and add it to my batch.

As with most cooking tasks, the more sausage you make, the better a feel you will get for it.

=R=

ViewsAskew wrote:QUESTION: why do we remove veins? Most of the ones I found were very tiny and in the fat. Is it taste, texture, or just that we find it icky to have veins in our sausage?

I suspect this refers to glands and nodes (lymph), possibly even sinew/connective tissue, not just veins. Upon cooking these just become hard and chewy with little taste, so are probably best left out of sausages. In some cases, depending on the trimming, there is a much larger 'gland' with butts that needs to be discarded.

sazerac wrote:I suspect this refers to glands and nodes (lymph), possibly even sinew/connective tissue, not just veins. Upon cooking these just become hard and chewy with little taste, so are probably best left out of sausages. In some cases, depending on the trimming, there is a much larger 'gland' with butts that needs to be discarded.

They listed all of the above - not just veins. So, I was wondering specifically about veins. The ones I found were so small and they were in the fat itself. As you wrote, I can see why removing the other things is important.

It really wasn't a lot of work doing it this way. At least compared to how I usually do it with my MIL. She and her sisters - they are from Italy - make sure we take out all the parts! But, they have never separated the meat and fat like this. They end up grinding it really fine and get a texture that I don't like as much.

Per the leaness, I agree about that - I did buy fatback (got it at Paulina this time). What this method of separating did was allow me to work by weight and establish a formula that I liked. 3 parts lean, 1/2 part mixed, one part fatback, 1/2 part original fat. We tasted various mixes before deciding on the one we like the most. I let it sit all night, so this morning is biscuits and gravy if I can ever wake up and get to Whole Foods for some milk.

In general, I'd say this worked really well. The sausage is the best I've made to date. The texture is just right for us - I have some texture because I ground the lean meat on a larger plate. But the fat I did very fine. So the fat is nicely dispersed, but there are no "goombahs, shanks, or yanks" (in the words of my partner's family) to annoy the mouth.

No pics of the biscuits and gravy - I put it on a white plate before I thought. . .duh!

The gravy turned out well. . .but the biscuits were not as good as usual. Making gluten-free baked goods has many perils that gluten baking does not, lol. I think I ended up with too many "sticky" flours/starches, so they were too sticky and not tender. I also could have overmixed. Or both. <sigh> It was still edible and something we haven't had in about ten years.