[Sca-cooks] Need assistance in Scaling Sausage Spicing

[Carol Eskesen Smith]

It's a little late for my input, but the water seems excessive to me; you will probably not need little more than a pint or so to make your sausage mix loose enough to form into sausages without being too loose to hold together well.  Remember that the flavors will blend, as well as intensify, and if you are tasting without casings, the flavor will intensify after the sausages are encased.
If your recipe is not a full derivation from a Medieval recipe, you might want, next time, to try the same blend with either wine or beer as your liquid - homemade, if you can get it.  It will affect the finished flavor, of course, but WOW! can it be good!  What is your source, by the way?
When you say you are working with a "hand-cranked jobbie", are you referring to a hand-cranked press, or to a meat grinder?  I suspect that the values for water might be slightly different, depending on which you were using.

Regards,
Brekke

----- Original Message -----
From: Barbara Benson
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 11:02 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Need assistance in Scaling Sausage Spicing

Greetings,

I spent the week working out the spicing for a sausage recipe and will
be commencing full scale production tomorrow (full scale being 35 lbs
- which is not so much.)

The recipe I arrived at working with my hand cranked meat jobbie is as follows:

1 lb Pork
1 lb Ground Beef
1/2 lb Pork Bellies
1 t Kosher Salt
1/2 t Black Pepper
1 t Dried Sage
1 t Dried Marjoram
1 C Water

Tomorrow I will be making a scaled up version that the direct
multiplication would be:
14 lbs Pork
14 lbs Ground Beef
7 lbs Pork Bellies
14 t Kosher Salt
7 t Black Pepper
14 t Dried Sage
14 t Dried Marjoram
14 C Water

I have never tried to scale anything where I cannot taste as I go so I
was looking for some advice on what might be a problem. I am going to
add the water carefully until I think it is right. I looked up some
info on scaling and it said to half the herbs after the first doubling
which would have me reduce the herbs to 7.5 t apiece and I am afraid I
would end up with really bland sausage.

When I tasted my initial trials I felt that it could use a little more
salt and a little more of one of the herbs so I am not afraid of
spicing. After I make them tomorrow they will be frozen for about a
month and I know the spices will intensify in that time. The only
thing I am afraid of is the pepper getting too peppery.

Any suggestions that anyone has would be extremely helpful. (the
sooner the better).

Great thanks,
Glad Tidings,
Serena da Riva
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