Hi everyone, I’m scrodumb and I am a retail butcher and sausage maker in Toronto, Canada.
My culinary experience extends far beyond that but these days my specific interests are mostly meat and meat processing. Starting to get into charcuterie and expanding my sausage repertoire into fermented, cured, smoked and emulsified products. Will be making my first coppa and pancetta this coming week. Have some Cantonese style lap cheong drying too.
I’m happy to help with any meat related questions or troubleshooting, feel free to ask here or message me directly. Love bouncing ideas back and forth especially with other foodheads.
A couple weeks ago I ordered a half hog of Meishan pork for myself and made a bunch of sausages for my friends and family. The pic is my personal versions of Barese sausage (coiled) and Chipolatas (breakfast sized links). Both are super popular and I’m happy to share the formulations if anyone is interested. I have dozens more sausage formulations too, just ask. I can turn nearly any red sauce pizza recipe into a sausage. Hawaiian absolutely SLAPS. Other dishes too. I created a Cubano sausage that tastes just like the sandwich.
I’ll try to post every week or two but seriously if you have any meat related queries hit me up I’m always happy to help. Next post will likely be some tips and tricks I’ve learned and discovered in my journey.
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I’m not even sure I know what to ask!
Let’s start with something, though….What are your favorite cuts to work with… and what do you with them?
Beef I like the boneless blade section. Poor man’s ribeye, Denver steak, stir fry (poor man’s flank steak right beside the Denver), plenty of stew and burger. I usually braise large chunks of stew and pull it, I make wicked “carne asada” nachos with it. My favourite cut to cook and eat is the very first chuck end ribeye, failing that a nice 1.5" striploin or a bavette if it’s for lunch. Making prime rib roasts is fun. For charcuterie I’m interested in using the “baseball” muscle from the sirloin to make basturma.
Pork I use whole shoulder for sausages mostly but I’m partial to the midloin chop when it comes to eating. The t-bone pork chop. I like it 1.25" thick. Heritage breed aged for two weeks is God tier chops. I usually go for Mangalitsa breed but our farm didn’t have any this time so they sent me Meishan and I’m impressed. Meishan fat is pork fat properties but closer to beef fat flavour. Wow. I have tons of pork products planned in the pipeline. Deli meats, charcuterie, smokies etc.
Lamb I only eat rib or loin chops but use everything for sausage. I LOVE processing lamb racks but unfortunately market conditions led our shop to order them pre-cleaned. Every chance I get I’ll clean and french a lamb rack. It’s fun.
Chicken is all about the thigh for me. Breast meat is trash these days. North America has overbred our hens to the point they’re stacking breast meat TWICE as fast as ten years ago. Problem is the heart can’t pump oxygenated blood to the muscle fast enough so the collagen doesn’t develop and the spaghetti-sized muscle fibres split apart and look and eat like crap. Thighs are still excellent, almost impossible to overcook and full of flavour. Wings when I’m entertaining (fried in schmaltz ofc). Leg drumsticks when I’m cooking just for me or for staff meal.
Turkey. Don’t get me started. It’s stupid for every reason imaginable. BUT I am going to make turkey bacon at work soon for the first time and I’m optimistic. Last Thanksgiving I made a turkey breast roulade stuffed with turkey sausage. Year prior it was a spatchcocked bird brined overnight in saltwater and liquid smoke. Divine. This year my brother is cooking it but I’ll provide the bird and brine it in the smoke brine again. When I eat turkey I prefer sausages. I make amazing turkey sausages (I leave the skin on when I grind). I find nearly any formulation I use for beef or pork works just as well with turkey. I make a wicked turkey pepperoni that doesn’t require fermenting. Mustard powder replaces paprika and bacteria culture to retain the tangy notes.
Aside from the odd custom order that’s the bread and butter of what I enjoy at work.
The brother of my ex gave us for Thanksgiving a turkey he raised one year, that was good. And the never-frozen heirloom birds are pretty good too. My kids would agree with you on turkey, though, and I do agree on the chicken, my husband likes the boneless skinless soulless breast but bone-in skin-on thighs are so much better and so forgiving to cook.
Sounds like you love what you do.
I associate sausages with ultra processed foods & low quality meats and generally avoid buying them at the supermarket.
Looking at your post, it seems like that’s not the sausage’s fault though — so where do I get high-quality sausages from? Also, are there sausages you recommend for fitness-aware folks, that are higher in protein and lower in fats?
Most independent butcher shops will make their own sausages in house. Feel comfortable asking about ingredients and what specific cuts end up in the grind.
Poultry sausage is the leanest and lowest salt percentage. I prefer turkey over chicken but both can be great.
Butcher shops are a godsend. Thank you for your service.
I appreciate your enthusiasm, welcome!
Thanks.
I can’t wait to share the lap cheong post. Expect it mid October, after our Thanksgiving. My first time making it but I’m already planning a Szechuan version for next time.
Excuse me what do you mean by “I can turn any red sauce pizza into a sausage”. I’m a huge fan of Hawaiian pizza and you seem to be suggesting this can be sausaged? How is that possible does it have dough.
Everything but the crust. I don’t use binders or fillers.
Ingredients are salt, pepper, tomato paste (neutralized with baking soda), dried oregano, chili flakes, ham or cooked bacon, high temp mozzarella (I make my own) and canned pineapple. There’s some nuanced technique beyond that but it’s literally a Hawaiian pizza on a bun.
That sounds so good. I hope one day this technology makes it to new Zealand
If CANZUK ever happens I’ll swing by and teach a semester or two. Otherwise I’m trying to get it featured on a prominent YT sausage making channel next October (missed the application this year).
Wish we had decent butchers here. Lots of ranch land, no butchers. Sad.
Will be making my first coppa and pancetta this coming week.
This is a long process, yeah? Keep us updated?
The pancetta is tiny, it’ll be ready pretty quickly. The coppa is whole and will take a month or two.
I will absolutely post when I begin and again what I glean.
Ay, I dont have a question right off but we’re glad you’re here! ☺️❤️
Hi I’d put your meat in my mouth so call me if you’d like.
My sausage already has a local fanclub, you’ll have to do a bit better than that🤣
I’ll tickle your meatballs if you get my drift.
With a username like that I can’t say no.
Okay.
I want a bear and moose sausage seasoned with onion, garlic and pepper.
Depending on the season you’ll want either more bear or more moose. Either way you’ll need to add pork fat. Aim for a 70/30 lean to fat ratio grind. Use more bear meat if they’re still on berries and more moose if the bear is already on salmon. Grind half the meat once, the other half twice. Grind the fat once. All from near frozen temp.
Beyond that you’re looking at something like this:
- 1.8% kosher salt
- 0.2% white pepper
- 0.2% black pepper
- 1.5% fresh garlic, ultra fine dice
- Coarse diced onion, sweated with brown sugar (I use 2-4 small yellow onions for 10 lbs meat)
You can also do 0.4% garlic powder and 0.3% onion powder but that will taste more like a breakfast sausage than an entree.
You could replace the onions with 0.3% dried marjoram and have a nice game meat kielbasa for the smoker.
If that was merely more innuendo you should know it’s an otter sausage, portioned like an elk’s, natural casing and unseasoned.
This is innuendo what I disclosed to you was a secret family recipe.
Haha okay how close was I to the ancient family version?
Can you let me know any safe, home, dry-age options for curing?
Or is it always best to discuss with a butcher to handle the aging?–
Can you outline the big differences between sausages from a butcher, compared to sausages from a supermarket? (Is it really the sawdust/filler?)
–
Sous-vide settings/tips for steak?
Can you sous-vide sausages? (Is there any point?)
There are mini-fridge sized curing chambers for home use. You can buy cellulose aging wraps, which is what I’m using at first, and nowadays there are permeable vac bags designed for dry aging as well. Haven’t heard much good about those though, very difficult to establish and maintain a proper seal. The sheet wraps came recommended. I don’t know enough about ideal temperatures and humidity just yet, I’m only beginning this foray myself, but a stable environment, cool, low humidity and decent airflow makes sense to me. Humidity being the most important factor. Then, as long as you use the correct type and amount of cure salt it should be a matter of patience. Like a less than ideal environment will still work but may take a bit longer.
Fresh sausage from a supermarket meat counter (where I live) is probably fairly close to what I make. However they’ll probably use some fillers and excess water to save money. The pre-cooked or frozen stuff you’d buy away from the meat counter is more likely to be loaded with additives. As for sawdust, well that’s a butchery term for the emulsion of meat, fat and bone that collects in our bandsaw. It’s not wood mill sawdust, we just call it that. If it’s collected while still fresh there is nothing nutritionally bad about it. I use it in dog treats all the time. I WOULD NEVER FEED IT TO A HUMAN as I pride myself on producing too quality fare but it’s not the end of the world some cultures add it to their sausage farce (looking at you Australia). As long as they’re open and honest it’s going in there, and using it safely, I see no issue. My shop generates less than one pound of it per day at peak so it’s not exactly going to make us millionaires.
My only gripe with grocery store sausage is they’re all the same tired and played out recipes. I pride myself on producing recipes and versions of products nobody else is making. You want a Hawaiian Pizza Sausage? You have to buy it from us. My Chipolatas recipes brings the sausage full circle back to its ancient Roman roots via the caramelized onions. I chose to do that when nobody else was. It elevates mine above the generic, corporate approved safe bet.
I have never sous vided a steak in my life. Nothing against it just not my style. I’m a cast iron pan sear guy. Love the crust texture.
As for sausages yes you can absolutely sous vide. You’ll want to use cure salt as the cook will hold the meat in the danger zone for some time. Using cure salt and sodium erythorbate will give your par cooked sausages a long shelf life in the fridge. Many people hosting or catering cookouts will par cook sausages in advance like this so they can be quickly seared and served at the event. Quite popular preparation. After sous vide give them a couple minutes ice bath then rest at room temp for 30 minutes before packing and refrigerating.
Thanks for the ton of detail!
I did not know about the sawdust terminology.
Did you mean “add it to their sausage fare”?
And can you let me know how Australia adds in sawdust? Like is it a lot more than other countries permit?
I’m in Australia, and butcher bought snags here are considerably better than supermarket BBQ sausages.
Par-cooking for big BBQs is a great tip, I’ve been thinking about this kind of prep, since the start of the year. Will give it a go.
The Roman style chipolata sounds delicious, caramelised onion is a best-friend of sausages.
Congratulations on making your own Lap Cheong too. First time I’ve heard about someone making it themselves.
Farce is rooted in a Latin word meaning “stuffing”. It’s what we call the prepared meat filling we intend to pipe into the casing.
Fun fact the word botulism is from the Latin word for sausage. They discovered botulism when a batch of sausage was spoiled so it is forever known as the sausage bacteria despite it being present all over the place.
I have no idea about specific practices, standards or regulations in Australia, only anecdotally from a friend who’s from there. He’s a few decades my senior and has been in Canada for even longer so take it with a grain of salt. I imagine quality will vary shop to shop just like everywhere else. Like I said most retail shops won’t generate nearly enough for it to make sense using, if anyone is doing it it’s the mass processors who actually generate tons of sawdust.
Lap cheong is a lot of work. The ramen dish I make with it will be worthwhile. I’m using bone broth from the same hog.
The supermarket BBQ sausages have tiny 1mm bone shards, so I think they regularly combine the sawdust back in.
" take it with a grain of salt ". No pun intended.
Thanks for sharing your expertise (c:
Plus a full etymology lesson, added in!
Yup that sounds like sawdust.
Hello mr sausage boffin
I know not even enough to ask questions. So where do I get started with curing meats?
Learn what cuts make good cured versions. Pork belly is an excellent starting point.
Get cure salt and optionally a cure accelerator. I use sodium erythorbate but it isn’t required.
Tons of tutorials and recipes online, I’m just getting into it so I can’t recommend one over another but Two Guys And A Cooler (website and YT channel) is where I began.
You’ll need some consumables, whether it’s natural or synthetic casing or a collagen dry aging wrap. You can also get dry aging vac bags but they’re not the greatest.
Then finally a cure chamber. For some stuff I’ll use the cold cellar at my dad’s house, for others a standard refrigerator is just fine.
Curing meat is scientific and you MUST be precise with ratios of cure salt, accelerator as well as everything else. Learning the difference between a recipe and a formulation is beneficial as the latter you can tailor to any raw weight and reproduce the same result time and time again. Everything is a percentage or ratio based on raw weight. Cure #1 is 0.25% to 0.3% depending on region. Sodium erythorbate is half that. Everything else has wiggle room based on personal tastes. In my experience less is often “more”.
Is it true I don’t want to know how the sausage is made?
Hahaha. Not here. I work in an open shop so everyone can walk back to the window and watch us cut and work. Kids are fascinated watching me make sausage. We have milk crates I’ll setup so the younger ones can see over the half wall.
I wouldn’t trust a mass produced sausage. The amount of waste I remove…there’s a reason we charge more than factory sausage.
What all is in the category of “waste” that you remove?
Skin, bone, excess fat, fascia and ligament, glands and lymph nodes, traces of organ meat, blood clots, hair…
Factory lines will add excessive binders, gluten fillers, potassium sorbate (I could be mistaken but it’s SOMETHING similar) to increase water absorption…and thus excess water, all kinds of off cuts (“lips, hooves and assholes” is the meme but it’s not quite that gross in reality). Plus they’re grinding and combining meat from thousands of animals from dozens of sources which increases the need for treatment and preservatives. All my sausage meat comes from one farm and week to week it’s all from one harvest. Much easier quality control.
So I’m generally in the camp of might as well eat it if it’s there, use the whole animal and all that. I’m not suggesting you lower quality we already have plenty of cheap stuff, but isn’t some of it still edible even if it brings quality down? Does stuff like organ meat and skin get sent elsewhere like maybe an in house broth idk? (Also not trying to say you’re specifically being wasteful if you throw stuff out or anything. Used to be married to a chef so I know the efforts that go into reducing food loss but I don’t know a lot about butchery in particular so I’m just curious)
When I process my own hog I use almost everything. I make bone broth using the collagen tissue, skins, bones. I render all the excess fat to lard.
Through work we don’t have a solid market for pork broth or lard so it goes into the waste bin. A service picks it up every week and it’s shipped to a sorting facility then on to rendering plants and processors for all kinds of applications. Pet food/treats, cosmetics, soap, fertilizer, all kinds of stuff.
I make my own dog treats with some of the choice scrap material such as beef ligaments and pig skins. I also make my own soap from time to time and I use plenty of beef fat.
Glands and lymph nodes are SUPER bitter so I try to remove them prior to grinding. They’re usually edible and probably insanely nutritious but they ruin flavour like it’s a full time job.
what about things like chicken hearts or giblets? They’re delicious in pasta sauce or smoked, what about sausages?
Organ meat is more delicate than muscle and can easily overcook at much lower temperature/time.
Typically organ meats will go into their own sausage or adjacent product such as a pate or pudding or liverwurst.
Most small shops like my employer can’t produce it at scale and can’t afford to produce it in small batches. Those products are supplied by a wholesaler. The industry sends that meat directly to those producers and the muscle sections we get delivered are already clean of those materials.
I agree, chicken organs are delicious.
I tried making turkey pate this past January but I fucked it up royally. Luckily it was just leftover giblets from Christmas week we’d have tossed away so we didn’t lose money. This season I’ll try again but small personal batch at first while I hone my process.
I usually get a half cow at a time from a butcher. As we eat that down what usually happens is we get through the ground beef and steaks first and then have to figure out what to do with some of the roasts, eye of round, pikes peak roast, etc. We also get tallow from the butcher. Do you have any recipes for beef sausage I could use some of these roasts I’m not sure what to do with?
Absolutely.
Broccoli Beef, Bulgogi, Hot Dogs, Texas Hot Links (beef and pork), Chipotle Cheddar Brisket (you could use any muscle really), Carne Asada, Savoury.
Let me know which ones interest you and I’ll try to type them out in the coming days.
do you have any recommendations for grinders/stuffers? I tried using the kitchenaid attachments and they were beyond useless.
Purpose built machines for both tasks.
LEM has a solid reputation amongst home cooks and hobbyists but Hakka Bros/MEAT/whatever other brand the Chinese factory wholesales to are perfectly viable options too. If I had to buy my own gear for home use I’d go with Hakka/MEAT Chinese gear.
The hobbyists all agree you should “buy once, cry once” with this hobby. Get the size up from what you need now so you can scale up production in a year without buying new machines.
If you eat a lot of sausage it pays itself off quickly.
Over the last couple years I’ve been working my way through Marianski’s book along with Duncan Henry’s Marianski March series on his Youtube channel.
Mistakes have been made.
Marianski is awesome. I’ve been watching a lot of Duncan Henry stuff lately too, he’s great for technique and general knowledge and also a fellow hoser. Every October Two Guys And A Cooler does a Celebrate Sausage series on YT with a new recipe every day. I’m submitting several for next year.
Another sausage great is Len Poli. He’s a bit more advanced but I make versions of his formulations and they’re all excellent.
I like Eric’s recipes as well, been watching him for a couple years now, too. Hopefully we see something from you in that series, it’s usually a good watch.
I was just down in Rimbey a few weeks ago and meant to drop in to DH Meats and say hi to Duncan, but ran out of time. Next time.
I’ll keep ya posted if he chooses one of mine next year. I’m leaning towards my Hawaiian Pizza sausage but I have so many viable options it’s hard to choose.
The pizza ones are great though, its a base formula once you learn you can easily add whatever “toppings” and make any pie you want. I did Canadian Pizza for Canada Day this year, Supreme/Triple Crown is next.
The picture caught my eye!
It reminds me of my
Thanks for sharing!
Always good to meet another sausage maker. So cool those euro recipes are being produced in Korea and they look delicious!
I make a bulgogi beef sausage at work. Still trying to perfect it before I share the details but it’s one of my favourites.
About 10 years ago, I worked at Palagicore, which was a small IT company, like a startup. We had about 20 people, and once a month or something we had a team-building event. We did things like laser tag, chocolate tasting, cheese tasting, go-kart driving and stuff like that.
Every time, someone else had to plan it, come up with what to do, get the venue and all those things. And then it was my turn.
So I came up with the idea that we would make sausages at the office kitchen. We were around 20 people, so I think we bought about 20 kilos of meat, basically one kilo per person. We also bought some cheap hand meat grinders and those machines where you put the sausage into the casing, I think about five of each.
After work, we spent about four or five hours in the office kitchen making sausages. Everybody was involved, except the vegetarians, who later got some vegan sausages. After we were done, we grilled the sausages on the rooftop and had German beer, sauerkraut and sourdough bread.
The idea was that everybody would eat some sausages and then take the rest of their one kilo of sausage home for their family. But in the end, everybody only got about half a kilo home, because we were so hungry after working on it for so long that we basically ate half a kilo each.
It was also pretty difficult because the machines were cheap and nobody really knew how to use them. I was basically going from group to group, showing people how to make the sausages and telling them what they were doing wrong.
One group was working really hard with the meat grinder, pushing and grinding and grinding, but almost nothing was coming out. The third time I came by, I thought, “Wow, they have so little done. What’s going on?” So I looked at their meat grinder and tried it myself, but basically nothing was coming out.
I disassembled it and then saw what was wrong: they hadn’t put in the knives. There’s a knife inside the grinder that cuts the meat and pushes it through the holes, but they had forgotten to put it in. So they had been grinding and grinding for about an hour without the knife. Once they put it in, everything worked much better.
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