- Feb 10, 2009
- 410
- 22
I took a critical look at some breakfast sausage recipes and was a little surprised at what I found. Here are few that are well known on this site:
These three are the one by Pops, Wedlinydomowe (very similar to the breakfast sausage on Pg. 169 of Rytek's 4th Ed) and one I have used several times. If you have Rytek's book, note the last item he mentions is ground hot pepper......1 Tb. per 10 pounds of sausage. That must be a typo. Should be 1 tsp. (BIG difference!)
These are presented as measurements, weight in grams and percentages of the total. At the bottom is the total grams of combined spice mix per pound of meat.
Note the similarity of the percentages. Pops only uses black pepper. The others make up for less black pepper by adding one version or another of red pepper....either ground or crushed. The others add one thing or another such as thyme, nutmeg and ginger.
I recently picked up a couple pounds of sausage from a small local processor who makes sausage out of the trim. They use a salt/pepper/sage mix similar to Pops, but theirs is hotter. Looking at the charts, you could get that by simply adding something like 1/4 to 1/2 tsp hot pepper per 10 pounds of sausage. Not much pepper, but it would kick it up a notch. I've added 1 tsp per 12 pounds to mine and it turned out so hot some folks I know won't eat it.
Another consideration......the recipe I've used specified coarse kosher salt. There is less of that (in weight) per measure than in a fine textured pure salt like canning and pickling. That would throw you off. Also, note that unless you have a scale to tenths of a gram, it gets hard to measure these small amounts of spices by weight for small batches. In these recipes you see that standout some as the same measures wind up weighing something different. Better to make enough spices for 25 pounds or so and use what you need by pound of sausage. I've also recently found out that even ground pepper varies in hu (heating units). I've seen it from 30,000 (mild) up to 135,000 (very hot). You might want to know which one you have if you are adding that in. Fresh spices more potent than stale....and so it goes.
Along these lines, notice how little spice I use per pound vs. the others. It's half. It's slightly milder but its not like there is no spice at all. You notice it. The point being, that there can be a wide variation in what works...it's up to you to figure out what you like best and go from there. After seeing these comparisons, I'm going to bump my spice ratio up to around 10 grams per pound and try a few pounds that way.
These three are the one by Pops, Wedlinydomowe (very similar to the breakfast sausage on Pg. 169 of Rytek's 4th Ed) and one I have used several times. If you have Rytek's book, note the last item he mentions is ground hot pepper......1 Tb. per 10 pounds of sausage. That must be a typo. Should be 1 tsp. (BIG difference!)
These are presented as measurements, weight in grams and percentages of the total. At the bottom is the total grams of combined spice mix per pound of meat.
Note the similarity of the percentages. Pops only uses black pepper. The others make up for less black pepper by adding one version or another of red pepper....either ground or crushed. The others add one thing or another such as thyme, nutmeg and ginger.
I recently picked up a couple pounds of sausage from a small local processor who makes sausage out of the trim. They use a salt/pepper/sage mix similar to Pops, but theirs is hotter. Looking at the charts, you could get that by simply adding something like 1/4 to 1/2 tsp hot pepper per 10 pounds of sausage. Not much pepper, but it would kick it up a notch. I've added 1 tsp per 12 pounds to mine and it turned out so hot some folks I know won't eat it.
Another consideration......the recipe I've used specified coarse kosher salt. There is less of that (in weight) per measure than in a fine textured pure salt like canning and pickling. That would throw you off. Also, note that unless you have a scale to tenths of a gram, it gets hard to measure these small amounts of spices by weight for small batches. In these recipes you see that standout some as the same measures wind up weighing something different. Better to make enough spices for 25 pounds or so and use what you need by pound of sausage. I've also recently found out that even ground pepper varies in hu (heating units). I've seen it from 30,000 (mild) up to 135,000 (very hot). You might want to know which one you have if you are adding that in. Fresh spices more potent than stale....and so it goes.
Along these lines, notice how little spice I use per pound vs. the others. It's half. It's slightly milder but its not like there is no spice at all. You notice it. The point being, that there can be a wide variation in what works...it's up to you to figure out what you like best and go from there. After seeing these comparisons, I'm going to bump my spice ratio up to around 10 grams per pound and try a few pounds that way.
