How to Make Sausage - Holy Voodoo Jalapeño Cheddar
This is the best sausage that I have ever tasted!
Sausage making is an art and a differentiator in Texas BBQ. Gone are the days of simply being able to offer an all beef or all pork sausage at Texas BBQ joints. In order to make the prestigious Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints list, folks have to get creative with their sausage making.
My friend Dayne Weaver, owner and pitmaster at Dayne's Craft Barbecue makes some of the best sausage you have ever tasted. He has been a Meat Church user since prior to opening his BBQ joint. He came to me with this suggestion to make a Holy Voodoo Jalapeño Sausage. OMG, it's AWESOME! It is the best sausage I've ever tasted.
This video is a 3 day process which is the preferred method to make THE BEST sausage with a perfect snap when cracked open. This process can be condensed into 1 day if you like. The results will be good. Just not as good as the 3 day method.
The sign of a perfectly created and cooked house made sausage is the snap on the casing. Spoiler Alert: You are going to like the ending of this video!
Meat Church How To YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/ENvQ79rpe4k
Ingredients
- Meat
- 4 1/2 lbs pork (sliced off a pork butt), cubed 1 - 1.5"
- 1 lb brisket trim 80:20 meat to fat, cubed 1 - 1.5"
- 1/4 lb pork fat, diced
- Seasoning
- 1/2 C + 2 T Meat Church Holy Voodoo
- 3 T coarse black pepper
- 2 T paprika
- 1 T chipotle powder
- 1 T jalapeño powder
- 1 T mustard powder
- 6 grams pink curing salt (Prague powder #1)
- Other
- 10 oz medium cheddar, diced into 1/4" cubes
- 4 medium jalapeños, de-seeded and diced into 1/8"
- 1/2 C non-fat dry milk
Other & tools
- 32-35mm natural hog casings
- Meat grinder
- Sausage stuffer
- Instant read thermometer
Day 1 - Preparing the Meat & Seasonings
Cut up the pork and brisket into 1 - 1/2" cubes.
Mix the pork, brisket & fat in a large mixing bowl.
Add the curing salt and toss thoroughly. The curing salt needs to be applied first so that it is not blocked by the other seasonings and can be effective.
Add in the remaining seasonings (not the dry milk). Mix by hand.
Place the bowl covered in the refrigerator until day 2.
Day 2 - Grinding, Mixing & Casing
Soak the hog casings in water while you move to grinding.
Setup your grinder with a 10mm grinding plate for the desired texture.
Remove the meat from the refrigerator.
Run the seasoned meat mixture through the grinder being careful not to overstuff the machine. If you need the plunger you are likely trying to run too much meat through the grinder.
After all of the seasoned has been run through the grinder, run it through a 2nd time.
Add in the cheese, jalapeños and milk powder.
Mix by hand.
Place the mixture in the stuffer. Press it down all the way to the bottom by hand to remove any air in the stuffer.
Find the end of the casing and get some water inside of it. Run the water all the way through the casing to remove the salt used to preserve the casing. Watch the 16:00 mark of this video to see an example.
Feed the entire casing onto a medium horn on the stuffer. Crank the sausage at a regular speed and coil the sausage until all the mixture is out of the stuffer.
Pierce any air pockets with the sharp end of a boning knife.
Twist off or tie the end of the casing. Twist 1/2 lb sausages down the entire coil. Using a toothpick, pop any air bubbles.
Do not cut the sausages individually.
Place in the refrigerator until day 3. This will dry the casing.
Day 3 - Cold Smoke & Final Smoke
Prepare your smoker to cold smoke. We used a Mill Scale 94 gallon offset with lump charcoal and post oak to run a fire under 175.
Remove the sausage from the refrigerator. Snip the sausage casings to create individual sausages.
Place the sausages in the smoker.
Smoke until 155 internal temp. We place our Instant Read Thermometer in the end of the sausage to check doneness.
Remove the sausage from the smoker and drop into an ice bath for 2-3 minutes. This will shock the sausage and stop the cooking process.
At this point the sausage is fully cooked, but you need one final cook to achieve sausage perfection. You can continue to the final cook or you can vac seal the sausages to refrigerator or freeze them.
Increase the temperature of your smoker to 250.
Smoke the sausages until they reach 150 internal temperature.
Snap a sausage open to see that perfect snap!
Slice the remaining sausage on a bias and enjoy one of the most rewarding processes in all of Texas BBQ!