O/T first bacon

[george]

Hi Bushman

What do you mean by too porky?

We've had a few failures with some sausage recipes where the texture was pretty bad and the moisture and fat content no good - but too porky?

The bacon cure I'm using is a very old fashioned salt and sugar cure that does leave the bacon very salty - but after soaking tastes great.


George

 

[bushman762]

By too porky...I mean that our sausages did not have a nice texture nor did they have a sausage flavour. They were missing something, perhaps oats or rusk and some other flavourings other than salt, pepper and spices.

Our bacon usually only tasted of salt or like a very thin pork chop. Even with soaking before use it never tasted like bacon you buy. I thought about building a smoker, but would want better/ proper receipes for both bacon and sausages before going through all that effort again.

Like OtT says there is sure to be more on this topic.

Heres hoping, because I've had good bacon and sausages and I would sure like to master making them!

Thanks and Best Regards,

 

[george]

Bushman

Try here http://www.sausagemaking.org/ for loads of info about sausage making -especially the forum pages. The forums on www.rivercottage.net are pretty good for info too.

Our worst failures came from not getting the meat/rusk ratios right. I always thought that a pure meat sausage would be better than one mixed with rusk, but it just comes out like a sausage shaped burger - and really dry! When you get the ratio right then the whole thing is a lot moister and the texture better as more of the fat is retained to moisten and lubricate the meat.

The other thind I found to work very well was to mix 50/50 course ground meat and fine ground meat in any recipe. The texture just seemed to work much better.

Can't help much with the bacon - this is my first lot and it seems to have worked very well.

George

PS

I just went in to sausagemaking.org forums and they're offline after some ar*e has hacked them. I'm sure they'll be back though.

 

[bushman762]

Thanks George I think I'm getting interested again! www.sausagemaking.org/ seems a very useful site, I've bookmarked it for later.

Best Regards,

 

[Razorstrop]

As a serious suggestion, if you were to ever consider selling some of your produce, I as well as quite a few others would be very interested. Unless you have done it yourself, how good is the idea of the meat of an animal that you can know the full history of from birth to death?You know what it ate when it ate where and how it lived etc etc.That to me is real eating.

Yummy yummy home grown meat in my tummy
Mr Strop

 

[george]

As a serious suggestion, if you were to ever consider selling some of your produce, I as well as quite a few others would be very interested. Unless you have done it yourself, how good is the idea of the meat of an animal that you can know the full history of from birth to death?You know what it ate when it ate where and how it lived etc etc.That to me is real eating.

Yummy yummy home grown meat in my tummy
Mr Strop

Hi Razorstrop

I'ts something we're working on - we started an organic vegetable box scheme for this year and it goes down very well locally. We will be expanding next year to supply to various hotels and restaurants that want to use locally grown organic food.

our aim is to raise animals on a small scale/high quality basis as well and these pigs were our first just to see what we were getting into with rare breeds. We will be building slowly and I suspect we will end up selling via the internet in the same way other small suppliers do in order to reach the biggest possible market.

There are a number of very good suppliers on the net, who can do traceable meat and game - if you're really interested try www.rivercottage.net they have a list of small scale suppliers on the site.

Good eating!

George