The Texas BBQ Forum

More trouble than I want to go to making it, but it sure looks good.

spacetrucker wrote:ok guys gotta ask i'm trying to learn; so lots of silly questions...
I have some pink salt aka cure #1
but thus far have always used tender quick never the pink salt I have read about the formulas and the part per million usage of the cures, and tenderquick is less potent than pink salt as a cure. So do we use pink salt to cure the meat with out adding the salt is that its purpose? curious about this one... JM sorry for hijacking your thread

Tenderquick is a premixed cure#1 and salt.

It sounds like everyone is basicly on the same page about using cure. As I read these posts, the point that needs to be remembered is that the cure is to help keep bacteria from forming while the meat is in the danger zone. If you are cooking at 225 or higher, the danger zone is not an issue. There for, places like Blacks did not need to use a cure. For meats that are cooked below 180, they need a cure because they will stay in the danger zone too long. There was a comment about wanting the red coloring in your sausage like hams. This is a completely different process, a dry curing process.
TenderQuick is a version of a cure. If I can say, it's a weaker form of a sodium nitrate cure. When comparing it to pink salt, you use a higher percentage of TenderQuick per pound of meat than with pink salt. In a dry situation you use 1 teaspoon per 5 pounds of meat with pink salt/cure#1. Off the top of my head I don't know what the exact amount is for TenderQuick, but I know its more.
Someone wrote that they were using a cure to aid in taste and texture. My opinion is you may be barking up the wrong tree. It will help with appearence, ie the red coloring. But also remember that there are nitrates in the smoke we are treating our works of art with, ie the smoke ring.
As far as high jacking this thread, no worries. I started it with the intent of showing people a project I was working on. But it seems we have gotten a good discussion going on sausage making. Don't consider that High Jacking.

A good book for beginners like myself is Ruhlman's Charcuterie. He doesn't make Texas BBQ sausage, but I just finished making his venison and pork sausage and it turned out great.

Everything in my research about curing meats is that the cure is to reduce bacteria growth allowing cold smoking. But I've made exactly two batches of sausage, so I'm far from any sort of expert.

Now I must google "Hot Gut Sausage"


Great post.

andrewospencer wrote:Now I must google "Hot Gut Sausage"

Good luck finding something that is really useable. Texas Hot Gut/BBQ sausage if being smoked above 200 degrees, basicly your normal pit temp., it does not need to be cured. As far as a recipe for it; keep it simple. Think about what the Hill Country BBQ Houses use. Beef, pork, enought far for an overall 30% fat content, salt, pepper, and the one or two other spices. Which seems to be either local taste, or ethnic origin.

spacetrucker wrote:thanks for the feed back,
I too have a job that pays the bills and it isn't cooking...
I really like the sausage concepts and doing my best to learn it including lot of reading.
Lochart Texas is just down the road and the sausage they sell and cook is one of the "recipes" I am hoping to achieve. We really like the way it tastes.
I have made "fresh sausage" on a couple of occasions and the taste difference is extensive between fresh and cured.
The sausage making for me has been a long and bumpy road, my first and biggest mistake was buying a cheap grinder and stuffer, neither worked very well and only added to the over all frustration of the project.

I just got back from a 3 week BBQ Bucket List Tour. Part of the trip was devoted to the Texas Hill Country. Some of the places I went were City Market, Luling; Smitty's and Kreutz in Lockhart; Southside and Meyers in Elgin; Franklins and LA Barbecue in Austin. The top 2 for sausage on that day were Southside and LA Barbecue IMO.

That would be a cold beer taste fine!

good on the trip, I am down from a knee replacement ouch...
in my opinion you hit some of the best places I have ever eaten sausage at in Texas.
the consistency in Lockhart seems to change from year to year may be my taste changes not sure

This will be a lot of information at once so please bear with me.

For starters: Always use a 2% salt solution by weight of meat. This results in a perfectly seasoned sausage, every time. So if i was using a recipe that called for 1kg of meat I would use 20g of salt. I always use the metric system for sausages, it is easier and more precise to scale.

The reason for this percentage is two-fold. One is the human tongue can only withstand up to a 2.5% salt concentration before we find it inedible. Two is that microbial growth is greatly slowed from a range of 2%-5%. After 10% it stops completely. This percentage helps prevent spoilage.

To touch on microbiology briefly. The only food borne illnesses that you would need to be worried about (i.e. that wont die and be rendered harmless by reaching temperatures above 165F) are toxin mediated infections. The most popular is botulism. Which btw means sausage in Latin. The time it takes clostridium botulinum to begin to produce spores is about 72hrs in ideal conditions (danger zone.) By combining meat with salt, sodium nitrate, and various spices you are slowing down that growth. You would need to smoke the sausage for a couple days in the danger zone before you would have to worry. Also if your temperature brought the sausage above 150ish you kill the bacteria. Once the bacteria is neutralized there is no risk. It is only if the bacteria were allowed to produce toxins that you should be concerned as you cannot destroy those toxins by heat. Toxin mediated infections need time and proper conditions.

For the rest of the micro world: Most of it will die when you combine your meat with salt and curing agents. The rest will die when you cook the sausage. I would not worry about the danger zone when smoking. Especially when smoking between 225F-300F. The conditions are terrible for the growth of bad bugs. If you want to try your hand at cold smoking, I recommend a lot of research. Botulism is one of the most lethal neuro-toxin in the known world.

Buy fresh meat. Respect the danger zone when storing and preparing. Make sure sausages are cooked through.

Ponder for a moment: these methods came about as a way to preserve meat and prevent illness. Trust the tradition.
If you find this impossible, trust the science.

On to a Master Recipe:
2268g(5#) Meat
45g Salt
2t Black Pepper
1t Pink Salt (optional)

This recipe highlights 3 very important ratios.
2% salt, 2t/5# pepper, 1t/5# pink salt.
All are great rules of thumb when creating sausages.
From here you can add whatever spices you desire.
Recommend adding in the 1t/5# range to start.

I also recommend reading Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman. It is an excellent first resource.

I hope you find this information useful.

I got lost looking for the flavor profile of a hot gut and ended up here.

Bhorton42, first Welcome to the forum.... that being said your first post contained a lot of good information. Information I will be "absorbing" for a while you made several interesting points and answered some questions I have pondered for a while, thanks for the post