And it’s magnificent!

I know there are others out there. Show 'em off!

Brianzipperdog123 asked about these in the Roll Call thread. I posted the recipe there, but that’s a great place for it to get buried. Plus, I’ve done a couple of batches since and made a couple of changes. I dropped the egg wash and am much happier with the crust on the top of the roll. I also made them larger (8 to a batch instead of 10) to better accommodate fillings and baked a little longer to make up for that. A batch of 10 was closer to a large dinner roll. In fact, I bet dividing the batch into 12 rolls would be about a perfect dinner roll size (and baking more like 12-13 minutes, total).

HARD ROLLS FOR WURST
YIELD: 10 buns or rolls

INGREDIENTS

 500 g flour (unbleached all purpose 4 cups) (or sub 100g whole wheat)
 313 g water (11 ounces)
 10g salt (1 2/3 teaspoons table salt)
 3g instant yeast (1 teaspoon)
 5g sugar (1 teaspoon)
 10g butter (2 teaspoons)
 (optional, but not recommended) 1 egg (beaten with 1 teaspoon water for wash

DIRECTIONS

 Mix all dry ingredients except salt well and add water until all of the flour is wetted and there are no
lumps.
 Let the dough sit covered for 20 minutes, then knead with bread hook for 3 minutes.
 Rest for 15 minutes, sprinkle the salt over the dough, and knead for additional 3 minutes until the
dough is uniform and somewhat smooth. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
 Stretch and fold the dough letter-style (top to bottom and side to side) and let sit for 30 more min,
covered.
 Stretch and fold and place dough in fridge overnight, covered.
 Next morning, If the dough didn’t double in volume, let it sit out until it does.
 Divide into 8 pieces weighing 85 to 88 g each and shape as desired.
 Preheat oven to 450 F with a pan for steaming at the bottom of the oven.
 Cover dough with oiled plastic and let proof until it’s 1.5 to twice it’s volume (about 90 minutes)
 Just before baking, slash each roll lengthwise across the center. If desired (but not recommended), brush with the egg wash (BEFORE slashing).
 Add 1 cup of hot water to the steam pan and bake for 8 minutes. Turn the
pan and bake for 8 more minutes or until 205-210F internally. Remove baked rolls to a cooling rack for at least an hour to properly cool (although dinner rolls can be served warm from the oven).

Y’all got me up out of my chair and in the kitchen to make some kimchi. I had a jar of paste already put away in the fridge, so easy enough. I was absolutely wrong about making only a 5-pound batch, though. I bought two heads of cabbage that totaled out to about 6 pounds and, as you will see below, I had plenty of room to make a 10-pound batch. I need to remember that!

Cabbage chopped, salted, and ready to sit for 90 minutes (mixing up every 30 minutes):

Cabbage after salting, rinsing, and draining. Plus, the other goodies–the paste, a couple of grated carrots, chopped green onion, and extra freshly grated ginger:

All mixed up:

And set aside to ferment for what turned out to be about 24 hours:

I didn’t like all thar room in the jar, so I went and picked a bunch of kale that I chopped, salted, rinsed, and added to that mix. It still didn’t fill up the jar, but it got closer (and it came out pretty tasty!) I forgot the photo, though.

Tuxedo, Lord of the Backyard

I have all this sausage around, but no proper rolls.

Fixed that!

I’ve been fortunate enough to be a member of a number of online communities, and this one rapidly has become an important one. It really does make a difference when a business is interested in getting to know its customers. Y’all want interaction beyond just orders, and you like to see your customers interact with each other. Not only do you want to teach your customers, you also want to learn from them, and you want them to learn from each other. It’s a wonderful thing, and it takes a genuine effort.

I echo Chef’s words that y’all are doing something right. This community is another example of how Walton’s wants to provide for its customers, how y’all want us to have the best experience we can, and how y’all know that works to everyone’s benefit on every level. Bravo!

All I wanted to do was make sausage!

Howdy, y’all!

I’m in Bellaire, Texas, a small municipality pretty surrounded by Houston. We like to say that Houston is our suburb.

Both my parents are avid and excellent cooks, so I’ve been cooking for as long as I could pull up a chair to the stove or grill. I’ve been into cooking and food science for a very long time, and I’m always looking to learn something new. More specific to here, I’ve been into low-and-slow smoking for about 20 years. Other than what happens with barbecue-style smoking, I’ve done only a bit of curing here and there (mostly corned beef or pastrami or something like that), and I only started making sausage about a month ago.

My current cookers are a Weber kettle, a Klose 20x36 offset, and a Camp Chef Lux pellet cooker. I’m strongly considering a PK 100 and probably will pull the trigger on that sooner than later.

My favorite meat snack probably is dried sausage of just about any sort, followed up very closely by jerky and cracklins.

I’m very happy to have come across Walton’s when looking for sausage-making gear, as well as Meatgistics for what I’ve already learned. I’m looking forward to more.

Cheers, y’all!

“Low and slow” does not mean “as low and as slow as possible.” The idea of “low and slow” is to “cook” the collagen (the primary protein in connective tissue and what makes meat tough) to get gelatin. That both tenderizes the meat and retains moisture. Gelatin is what makes something “lip smackin’”! That reaction requires moisture, and one of the best cooking methods to make it happen is braising.

The idea behind wrapping is to achieve something of a braise. It also slows down evaporation. That keeps the meat from drying out on the pit, and it gets you through the plateau. In “Modernist Cuisine,” the authors finally showed us that the plateau is pretty much due to evaporative cooling. In other words, you aren’t so doing much cooking during the plateau. Instead, you are spending a bunch of time and fuel to dry out your final product. Or, you can wrap the brisket and get through that point (and get a better product).

Just like ribs, brisket’s high ratio of surface area to volume makes it particularly vulnerable to evaporative cooling. That’s why we wrap 'em both.

As for pink butcher paper v. foil? I’ve used them both and do agree that butcher paper sets the bark better than foil. It seems to allow enough evaporation to set the bark but not so much to stall the cooking. However, I get the same result just by opening up the foil when my brisket gets close to finishing (not on the bottom, mind you, but that’s the point, and I’m not as concerned about the bark on it). Since I’m only cooking 1 or 2 briskets at a time (instead of the 100 or so that Franklin’s cooks in a day), I don’t mind the extra trouble. Of course, it’s not like wrapping with butcher paper is much trouble.

So, I’m quite happy using either. Whatever is in front of me will do. If Aaron Franklin says that pink butcher paper is better, then I believe him. The man cooks more briskets in a few days than I’m likely to cook in my lifetime, so I’m going to listen to him. However, in my situation, it doesn’t really make much difference.

I here you, man. I always bake bread, but it’s much more on an occasional basis than it is right now. In the last month, I’ve done rye bread, ciabatta, semolina bread, biscotti, farinata, pita, and I don’t know what all else.

No one is going to care about the bark. If you cooked it right on the first place and didn’t just cake a bunch of rub on it, holding it won’t do much to the bark.

If someone feels the need to give you grief about the bark (or tenderness or whatever), politely let them know that they are welcome to cook the next one so that you can learn.

Yesterday’s lunch. I grilled up some of the latest batch of what’s becoming our “house” sausage.

This isn’t sausage made from corned beef. Rather, it was the result of the scramble when it hit me that St. Patrick’s Day was right around the corner and that I had forgotten to start curing a corned beef. I couldn’t get a corned beef done in just a few days, but (maybe, just maybe) I could simulate one a bit by working up a cured sausage with corned beef spices. It worked out very well, and a little tweaking got me right where I wanted it.

The single, coarse grind is a bit unusual, but I also find it key. Again, I wanted something to make me think of corned beef, and that goes beyond mere flavor. But, hey, you do it as you like.

This makes great bulk sausage, but I prefer it stuffed in large hog casings. That said, it also works very well as a stuffing, mixed with potatoes for a hash, or even just as a patty sausage. The next thing I want to play with is making a Reuben burger with this patty sausage.

“Corned Beef” Sausage

Ingredients:
 5 lbs (2.25 kg) Beef chuck roast (weigh after grinding)
 1 tbsp salt
 1 tsp Sure Cure (Instacure #1; Prague Powder #1)
 4 tsp ground black pepper
 2 tsp onion powder
 2 tsp garlic powder
 1.5 tsp mustard seed (whole)
 ½ tsp cayenne pepper
 ½ tsp paprika
 ¾ tsp dried thyme
 ½ tsp ground allspice
 ½ tsp ground ginger
 34g Sure Gel
 ¼ tsp ground clove
 ½ tsp ground celery seed
 1 tbsp sugar
 ¼ tsp ascorbic acid (or appropriate amount of other cure accelerator) (optional)
 ½ tsp ground coriander
 ½ tsp ground dill seed
 ½ cup ice water
 4 tsp light corn syrup

Steps:

1. Grind the meat as you like (I like only 1 grand with an 8 mm (5/16”) plate because I want some chew to this).
2. Mix in all remaining ingredients.
3. If stuffing, stuff into casings of your choice (I like large (38-42mm) hog casings, again for the chew). In any case, refrigerate for 8-48 hours to cure (or you can go right to cooking if you use an accelerator).
4. Stuffed sausages can be poached, cooked by sous vide, grilled, smoked, or cooked by any combination. My current favorite if stuffed into casings is to give the sausages a very light smoking and then finish by sous vide to 155F. A heavier smoking is just fine, but that’s more “pastrami” sausage (mighty, mighty good but not corned beef).

I did back when I started this sort of cooking, but I left the stress behind a long time ago. Some of that is due to experience with what might happen during a cook, but most of it is having made peace with the fact that things will happen. Just take it as it comes and move along. If you have any idea what you are doing, you’re going to make something far beyond what just about anyone normally gets.

Time is the greatest luxury, so give yourself plenty of it. Anything smoked holds well. Anything smoked also reheats well, so make it in advance and reheat, if you can get away with that. On that, you can reheat on site and make it look like you are “cooking.”

As for large events, choose your audience wisely (i.e., know you’re dealing with someone who won’t ride your butt about everything). Be confident in your knowledge and ability. Be humble, and accept comments graciously (no matter how they may be intended). In all likelihood, the negative comments sound louder than the positive, but that’s just because folks with negative comments tend to make much greater efforts to get them across. A lot of folks that like what you did may never say so to your face. If you know you delivered what you promised, then, you delivered what you promised.

Know that you never, ever can please everyone with everything you do, so never be disappointed when you don’t. Learn any lessons that are there to be learned, and then drive on.

processhead My thoughts, exactly. I would never ask for details on a recipe, but sodium content is important information that hardly gives much away.

I’d also be fine with a “no salt” product, but that’s another discussion for another thread.

Tex_77 Good gracious. The prelude to that review was something like “this car was the most amazing thing we’d ever driven . . . until the wheels came clean off.”

I’m of the same mind as PapaSop.

I’ve been on a number of forums over the years (as I’m sure all of you have, as well), and this always comes up. Frankly, I’ve never had a problem with someone asking “that question” again. On a BBQ forum that I was active on for many years (and, sadly, no longer exists), I don’t know how many times I described how I cooked brisket, prepared ribs, managed a fire, and other “basics” to someone who just joined. On a homebrewing forum, I went over basics countless times, as well. I few forums like this in the same way I attended hobby club meetings–it’s an exchange of knowledge, not just a collection of literature. New members are excited and enthusiastic, and they want to -talk- about the topic of the forum, not just read about it. Demanding that they do a forum search shuts them down, and I don’t believe that’s the vibe we’re looking for around here. Can you imagine how you would feel if you showed up at a meeting of enthusiasts and started asking “basic” questions only to be handed a book and be told to read it before asking those questions? I’d probably turn around and leave, never to return, and mutter some choice curses on my way out.

Also, it’s a way to see new members–not everyone posts in the “Roll Call” thread, and not everyone reads it. Encouraging questions (or, at least, not discouraging them) is one of the best ways to see new faces.

Another reason to not shoot down questions is that answers develop and change over time. Think about how the sous vide discussions have progressed.

Now, I’m all for a FAQ list, and I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to suggest that someone do a search on past topics if done in a friendly manner. Even better, go ahead and give someone a link to a relevant thread if you have one in mind.

One thing one forum I’ve seen do is to have designated “ambassadors” for new members. However, I don’t see that needed here. It’s an incredibly friendly forum around here, and someone always is popping up to welcome someone new.

Skip_Anderson I’m glad you mentioned the Summer sausage. I thought the 1# left sounded like a lot. As Jonathon mentioned, it does have a lot to do with the length and breadth of your stuffing horn.

(sorry if that got a little outside the bounds of a family forum!)

Anyhow, I had the same issue with my last batch of Summer sausage. What I did for that was to remove the horn, scoop or push out what remained in the stuffer (with a flexible spatula), and then feed as much as I could by hand into whatever casing I had started on until it was full (it might have been only 25% full at first, so it was a good bit).

I could pull that off since Summer sausage goes into that tough, fibrous casing. I don’t think I would try that with more delicate casings, but then I wouldn’t have as much left in a smaller horn. It wasn’t the prettiest sausage, but it was properly stuffed. I just used that one for my leave-in temperature probe and made sure that we ate that one at home, just amongst us.

I also do 2%. Shred the cabbage and weigh it. Weigh out 2% of that weight in salt. I always add caraway, and I might add something else (dill, fennel, cumin, dried red chile). I’ve never added mustard seed, but I’ll be sure and give that a try next time. I like to let mine go 7 weeks.

I typically stomp mine into my crock along the lines of what calldoctoday does, but I mixed the last batch by hand because I added some grated carrot and wanted that mixed evenly.

For those who were wondering about kimchi, I’ve used Maangchi’s simple kimchi recipe as a starting point and been happy. I add more ginger (because I like it), and I leave out the squid or oysters (because I like it better that way), and I make about a 5 pound batch instead of 10 (because that’s all I have room for). I typically let it get it a little more on the sour side. Doak likes his kimchi funky.

I do go ahead and make the full batch of “porridge” so that I only have to do that every other time. In fact, I might very well make a double batch of “porridge” because it actually improves as sits in the back of the fridge.

Brianzipperdog123 I couldn’t agree more. Metric makes things so much easier, especially when you need to adjust the batch size.

Tex_77 Yes, replace up to 100g (20%). I recommend it, actually. It just adds a little something.

Jonathon Chef I agree with both of you. So many of us claim that we never have any time and that we always are stressed, but the fact is that we do it to ourselves. Even taking 5, 10, or 15 minutes to just sit in quiet has an astounding effect on one’s peace, sanity, attitude, ability to cope, and all those other related things.

“But I don’t have 15 minutes,” many say. Yes, you do. You just have to give it to yourself.