Polish sausage help.

[s.a.m]

nelson11b what happened the last time you made it to question the out come?

[nelson11b]

I had 3 problems. The first being I believe I ground it to fine, 3/8 then 1/8. Second I used pork and pronghorn and not sure I hit the ratio right. Third, I didn’t follow the cooking instructions, so… I have some Walton polish seasoning showing up today and I will give it a shot later this week.

[YooperDog]

nelson11b what was your fat ratio. I am not sure about pronghorn, but I suspect it is pretty lean. Try maybe adding some pork trimmings to increase fat content w/o changing the ratios much. I make a lot of traditional style fresh and smoked Polish and a have a mix of coarse and fine ground and many types fine ground. What was the issue with your batch? Are you making fresh or cured?

[nelson11b]

I was mixing 80/20 and I think I will stay closer to the guidelines

[KenfromMI]

50/50 mix is only about 15% fat. I’m guessing you are around only about 6% which in my opinion isn’t close to enough fat for a decent sausage. I make a lot of fresh and smoked kielbasa and I tried to make it leaner but it never turned out as well as when I went 50/50. Without wild game kielbasa is about 30% fat.

[nelson11b]

Maybe I should try Game/pork 50/50 then

[processhead]

I do quite a bit of venison sausage and I would highly recommend increasing your fat content. If you can find mostly fat pork trimmings you would be good at 70/30. Most pork butts are too lean unless you go to 50/50 or higher when mixing with venison for many sausage styles.

[nelson11b]

That’s great help I will give it a shot

[KenfromMI]

I tried for several years using less pork. I was in a market in Hamtramck Michigan that makes the best Kielbasa on the planet. I was talking to the owners son about making kielbasa with Venison and mine was coming out dry after smoking but I was stopping at 152 internal. He asked how much pork and I said 20% to try to keep it healthier. He said Kielbasa isn’t supposed to be healthy bump it to 50/50 and then gave me a sample of his with that mix. I never looked back. LOL

[nelson11b]

Thanks man I will give it my best

[cdavis]

nelson11b welcome aboard. That’s what I like about this community. Someone asks a question and I learn a lot from it.

[Jonathon]

nelson11b Yes, as KenfromMI says, for a classic Polish or Kielbasa you need higher fat content. There really isn’t a way to use less fat and get similar results. I’ve read recently that some people are using boiled quinoa to replace fat and I’d like to get a hold of whoever started that trend! However…I also feel like I need to experiment with it to see if it actually works. There have been things I have been resistant to in the past that I ended up loving.

[KenfromMI]

Now I have made a virtually fat free breakfast sausage in the patty style. You use a pound of ground mushrooms for every pound of venison. Since mushrooms are 90% water it keeps the venison moist like fat but I’m pretty sure that would fail in a casing.

[KenfromMI]

Jonathon There are sausages that use other grains as additives in them so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work unless you are making a smoked sausage.

[Jonathon]

KenfromMI It won’t let me upvote your post from some reason but the mushrooms is a good tip for some people. I am not a fan of mushrooms so it wouldn’t work for me though! The boiled quinoa is supposedly used most often in fermented sausage but we will give it a shot in a few. If I am going to spend the time doing fermented then I am going to be adding pork fat!

[KenfromMI]

I’m pretty new to this site. What do you mean upvote?

[processhead]

KenfromMI That would be a “Thumbs Up”

[Jonathon]

KenfromMI It let me do it this time. Upvotes are just nice ways of telling someone you appreciate what they contributed. Downvotes are very rarely used and are usually based on the Blue vs orange team war that we have going on here. To put it simply I am on Team-Blue and some guy named Austin is on Team-Orange we occasionally do something to annoy the other team but it is ALL in the spirit of good fun!

Also, when you go to a profile you will see something called reputation. That is the total # of the upvotes someone has received.

[processhead]

Polite forum protocol : If you disagree with a poster’s response a thumbs down would generally be considered bad form other than the friendly competition mentioned by Jonathon. Stating why you disagree with a poster, supported by verifiable data and facts and done in a polite, constructive fashion is a great way to maintain a happy forum, avoid hurt feelings and flame wars.

Everyone has opinions. Opining on a subject and leading in with " in my opinion", is a polite way to voice an opinion on subjects that may have no right or wrong answer.

All of the above is just " in my opinion"

[PapaSop]

processhead
Polite forum community protocol.
Sorry… Just don’t like that word here. So much more than that.