How can I improve the texture of my home-made sausages?

Question

I am experimenting with home made sausages. Grinding chuck to make the sausage. Typically I pass it through the grinder 2-3 times (kitchenaid grinder, small die).

I've gotten the flavor nice, but when cooked the sausages are mealy and soft. When I reduce the number of grinds I get a sausage that is grainy and feels like hamburger in the mouth.

No matter what cooking technique I use (steaming, simmering, sloooow grilling, fast grilling) I get a sausage that is so flimsy it falls apart on the way to the plate.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Chuck? As in beef chuck? Not that it won't work, but it'll be slightly different taste and texture wise than the more common pork sausage.

I don't think the # of grinds is the issue. I'd be looking more at:

• temperature. Do you put the meat in the freezer for an hour or so before grinding, and are your bowls/grinder/etc cold? If your meat gets too warm, it'll separate from the fat, resulting in a mealy sausage.

• are you beating the ground meat & spices with the paddle blade and a bit of liquid at the end? You want to do that to produce a bind and end up with a tight (not crumbly) sausage.

Answer 2

Pinhead rusk in the right quantities makes a huge difference as does keeping the meat virtually frozen while preparing it. It took a long time for me to get it right but I would say 10% of the weight needs to be proper sausage rusk. Also, when I grind my meat up I throw in some ice cubes, but I make my ice cubes fresh with filtered water and chopped fresh sage.

Answer 3

Are you using enough salt? Salt has a massive effect on meat proteins, and when you grind meat and get salt involved it makes the meat cohere much more than it would without. This then leads to a sausage which stays together rather than crumbling apart when it's cooked.

From my (admittedly limited experience) you either have to go for the hamburger route (handle the ground meat as little as possible so it stays fairly distinct) or the sausage route (use salt and mix it thoroughly to get it to stick to itself). In between has never worked well for me at all.

Answer 4

1. Omit the canola oil. Oil prevents the meat fibers from binding.
2. Seems there's not enough solid fat. Separate the fat from the lean beef and measure separately. You need a minimum of 15% fat (20% is best), if the roast doesn't come with enough, you can add beef suet (back fat), or pork fat to the get the desired ratio. I found that, in general, store-bought chuck roast only comes with about 5% solid fat.
3. Add a small amount of water to the seasoning mix when mixing - just enough to make a thick slurry. This adds moisture and helps distribute the seasoning.
4. Bread crumbs are probably not helping, try a small batch without them to see if they make a difference. I personally don't like breadcrumbs because they impart a dough-like flavor and can dry out the sausage.
5. Consider using textured soy protein (TSP). If you want to use only beef in your sausage, then TSP helps retain moisture, stops shrinkage, improve texture, improves binding and tenderness. Do #'s 1-4 first, then experiment with TSP to see if it improves your sausage. You will need to add enough water just to get this to a paste before mixing.

I recommend Len Poli's Sonoma Mountain website for DIY sausage making. He has a ton of great info there.