Eat Alberta 2012: Session 3, Sausage Making

After a wonderful lunch (once again by NAIT) we were off to our third session of the day!


Sausage Making with Allan Suddaby, of Button Soup fame.

I've chatted with him on twitter a couple of times, as well as read and comment on his blog.
This was the first time we met it person.

It's always a nice feeling to meet tweeps in real life lol

Curing Update!

No, I still haven't gotten my pics up yet... but I'm hoping to be able to get them up later tonight. Because I refuse to be beaten by a computer (even though I'm sure it's gotten the best of me many times already).

The Chorizo hanging in my cellar! (yes, I'll have a pic of them here too)

They're doing wonderful, as far as I can tell. The temp has been stable. Never got over 16C and hasn't gone below 14C. That's perfect as far as I'm concerned.

They're feeling stiffer everyday. And I've been misting them with water 3-4x a day to keep the casing moist enough to allow the centre to cure properly. My link that I molded DOES have mold on it still. However, it's all on the bottom tip of each sausage in the link. *shrug* Can't win them all I guess...

Humidity is still a problem. Everyone else I know who cures uses a large bucket of salty water with a cloth wicking water out onto the floor to up humidity. I have 2 5gallon buckets of salty water with wicks! in my cellar. The highest it's gotten is 35%. It's sitting at around 30% now...

Failure.

Why? My room isn't large by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, most would call it tiny.

Could it be the shelving? Is the untreated (no chemicals for my cheese and sausages!) wood absorbing too much of the moisture? Is that a problem now, but an asset later (When it finally absorbs so much water that it's helping keep the humidity stable)?

Ideas?

I'm gonna be putting my parents old cool-air humidifier in there later this week. I forgot to grab it when I was out there this weekend. Made about a 1000 chocolate truffles with my sisters. Only ate maybe 6 throughout the day and that was way more than enough for me :P

They're delicious, truly, but one can only be around chocolate for so long.

Good thing they're for presents and not for me!

Also in the cellar right now is Duck Breast Proscuitto (recipe from "Charcuterie"). It cured in kosher salt for 24hrs in the fridge then was rinsed, dried, spiced, wrapped in cheese cloth and hung downstairs. Some people hang in the fridge, but I have a cellar and I better use it! lol

It should be ready by Saturday, that's when I checking it.

I'll get pics posted of it when I slice it. Then everyone can see how it turned out (good, bad, or ugly).

There's two breasts, one done in white pepper and another done in a blend of gingerbread spices (my own blend). Because there's nothing quite like the smell and taste of baking spices, especially around Christmas!

In the new year when I have the sausages and proscuitto out of the cellar I'm taking out the shelves that we built and reducing the width by 6inches. That's right, my cellar is sooooo small that 2' wide shelves are too big!

And then once that is fixed and the humidity is FINALLY up to where it should be... it'll be time for aging CHEESE! :D

Curing Cellar

Well, I have pics of the finished Jagerwurst, fresh Kielbasa and the Spanish Chorizo (for dry curing).... they're on my other computer. The computer that keeps crashing the website when I try to upload them for a blog post.

** I hate computers! ** specifically, really old ones. (really old in the computer world is 5+yrs)

Anyways, instead of arguing with it again (will try again tonight) I figure I'd do a post on my epic failures... yes, already.

My cellar is a degree too warm. A whole frick'n degree. That is easily fixed with getting an outdoor vent installed to let in some cold air and another to let out warm. Of course, when the temp finally gets to -20C for winter that one degree shouldn't be a problem. Should do it anyways.

The bottom of my wall isn't sealed properly. I had a water mister bottle thing crash and bust open today and all the water ran under the wall to the laundry room. That means I have cold air leaking out of there.

I can't get my humidity up. (hehe, can't get it up. oh dear...) There's a bucket of salty water dripping onto the floor (idea stolen from Kevin Kossowan) and I've been misting the untreated wood shelves and the sausages with plain old water.

I was hoping to have cheese in there by now. That would have put a couple more tubs of water in there to get the humidity up as well.

*sigh*

I'll try a get a couple of problems fixed then I guess I'll go from there.

Such is the way things go. Can't get everything right the first time. What would be the fun of that?

First Step into Sausage Making!

Today I picked up my order of pork shoulder from Acme Meat Market and dove head first into the world of sausage making!


Needless to say (if you've been following, even causally, my blog) that I obviously put a lot of time, effort and $ into being prepared for this. Getting the correct curing salts, doing research on the equipment I'd need, how to tell if something has gone wrong, sourcing suppliers, etc.


For my first round of sausage making I did a Jagerwurst (Hunter's Sausage).

It's very similar to a ham or garlic sausage that you'd find in the grocery store. It has curing salt #1 in it and is hot smoked, which fully cooks it. There is no drying/curing time in the cellar for this one, which is why I chose it (greater chance of success! lol)
The spices are (in the order I remember them in): coriander seed, mustard seed, ginger, nutmeg, garlic, blackpepper

It didn't get smoked today. That'll be for tomorrow when I have the Chorizo to go. The chorizo gets a cold smoke then goes in the curing cellar.
Also being made tomorrow is a fresh sausage (no smoking, no curing), kielbasa (Rulhman's recipe from "Charcuterie").

Then, when I get around to it, an all-beef peperone (pepperoni) in natural sheep casing. It's a non-smoked dry-cured sausage that'll be perfect for my friend Sean! He's allergic to pork and is gluten-intolerant. Since I can control everything and it's a smaller size which means it'll be more likely to succeed (dry-curing time is only 6 to 10days for sheep casing) it'll be a marvelous treat when it's done!


Here's some pics of what happened this evening...


Pork Shoulder from Acme

Beautiful! isn't it? :)
(sorry, no pics of all the spices. I'll remember to do that tomorrow for Chorizo)

Step one in the grinding process. Coarse grind. Then, half of that was put back through on a fine grind. Mix them all up and it's ready to stuff!


Natural hog casing, soaking in water.


Finished product! Ready to be looped into rings and hot smoked over some applewood tomorrow.

I'll post tomorrow on the status of the hot smoking as well as the other sausages.

And I'll even try to remember to take more pictures :)

New Blogs

I'm always on the hunt for more charcuterie and locavore blogs. Here's some more that I happened upon...

Cured Meats

The Art of the Pig

A Hunger Artist

Michael Ruhlman

Salt Sense, Rulhman

Meat Curing Safety Issues, Ruhlman

Enjoy exploring! Start your own food adventures :)

here's some links for myself on curing techniques i want to try...

Fiocco, Sausage debauchery Blog

Fiocco, Cured Meats Blog

South African Biltong, made without the use of curing salts, just rock salt!

Any meats you're itching to try to make at home?

research

just a bit of info from a favourite of mine, Hank Shaw.

all in preparation of my upcoming sausage making adventure!

Honest Food, Cured Meats

Cheese and Charcuterie

Today I finally ordered my cheese making supplies and sausage making goodies :)

I used these two websites...

New England Cheesemaking

Butcher and Packer

Why order online? Because I hadn't the faintest idea where to purchase any of those supplies here in Edmonton. A little research on other blogs (buttonsoup and kevinkossowan) suggested that the place they were getting some of their supplies from either moved or went out of business.

I'm happy with what I picked up and excited to finally get my butt organized enough to do this!

When my packages come in I'll give a much better listing of what I purchased. Until then, wait in suspense! ;)

Now, to clean up the basement and get my cellar up... October is a busy month... but i think if we plan it right and start picking up supplies now, we should be in good form to build at the beginning of November.

Better late than never? I think so... :)

Now, to find a dairy farmer that can sell milk... pasturized is fine with me, i know they probably can't legally sell raw milk. (Trade, maybe :) )

Farm Meats, Charcuterie, Cold Storage, Hunting

I placed an order for pig this wk, just in time for the fall rush to get GOOD QUALITY meat in the freezer.
We ordered from Country Quality Meats, a shop just by Bon Accord that my farmer, Nelson of Rose Ridge Land and Cattle, does all his beef through (the BEST all beef pepperoni! I slice it real thin and put it on top of pizza to crisp up. YUM!)
The service there is great and since I've already tasted their work through Nelson's products I know what I'm getting.

The bags and bags and BAGS of rescued apples that currently fill my freezer are being turned into applesauce this wknd. With the crabs being used for crabapple jelly and rose hip jelly (still need apple to set the jelly, naturally anyways)

Meaning, rm in my freezer! Unfortuately, it won't last long. I still have farm chickens that we butchered this summer in my mom's freezer and my sister is taking the cow to butcher this wknd, meaning Octoberish I'll need to make more rm. Plus, my 2/3 of a hog.

Eep! I need another freezer...

Anyways, I'm currently devouring "Charcuterie" by Ruhlman and Polcyn (got my order from Chapters in the mail today!). I really really REALLY want to make homemade kielbasa for a family holiday this yr!
Maybe if I really get my act together I can do some for Thanksgiving... But a more realistic goal would be Christmas.
Especially since my mother's coldrm should be reaching a good temp now... I want to try my hand at aged cheese. I have succeeded in doing fresh cheese, but to be able to serve my own cheddar with homemade sausage and preserves and home-dried local fruits... wouldn't that just be amazing?
Well, I think so!

And it's decided that we're going to rearrange our rental townhouse basement --
(yes, they really don't care what we do to the place as long as it's in one piece and adds to the "value" of the house. they've stopped putting money into them because in 10-15-20yrs they'll be torn down to make way for an LRT line)
-- so Zac's tools and workbench will be where my photography studio (portable studio) is and then we're going to put in a modest coldrm with an even more modest "curing closet" on the side.
I need just enough space to hold potatoes, jars of preserves, etc in the coldroom. And then a closet big enough to hang a rack of charcuterie and a shelf for cheeses. With room for a coldair humidifier, temp and humidty gauges, cuz i'm a big novice and super nervous about messing something up O_o *eep!*

I'm so excited for everything it's hard to keep it all in! :D


I renewed my WIN card today too. Online. It was sweet!
I've been nagging my man (that would be the elusive Zac) to get his firearms licesense and go out with the guys or my sister hunting, and he took the firearms course, and then didn't do his paperwork. That was 2 summers ago.
So, I made the decision that I would start hunting. I'm already willing to clean and butcher it all myself (even though the biggest thing I've ever cleaned and butchered is a chicken), why not hunt it myself too?
Alberta Hunter Education offers a course online (you'd have to take the test in person... somewhere. probably a library. that's where I'll have to take my FoodSafety Course final, when I'm finished the online modules that is), so I would probably do that and then phone up one of the 1/2dz firearms instructors in my hometown area and do that one day/wknd.

So, next fall. I'm hoping to be ready for next fall. *fingers crossed*