Dry crumbley boudin... how to fix, on my next batch?

[mikeh53]

Dry Sausage!

Ok… I am a new to sausage making… But, I have made 2 or 3 batches that turned out to dry… crumbly sort of? I Made about 10 lb. (4 batches)

Classic Cajun Boudin

night… Taisted great but… the sheep casings sort of explode when cooking… and do not hold together when cut… I followed the resapee



Sheep casings

· 1 1/2 lbs. of pork roast (boneless)
· 1/2 lb. of pork liver or other liver

· 3 cups of water *
· 1 1/2 cups of white rice
· 2 medium white onions
· 7 green onions chopped up
· 2 teaspoons of salt
· 2 teaspoon of black pepper
· 2 teaspoon of red pepper (or 2 if you want it good and spicy)
· 1/2 small bottle of Tabasco "Habenerro"

Put the pork, liver, water, onions, bell peppers, celery, 1 teaspoon of the salt, 1/4 teaspoon of the cayenne, and 1/4 teaspoon of the black pepper in a large heavy pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hours. Drain and reserve 2 cups of the broth.

Grind the pork and liver together with 1/2 of the parsley and 1/2 of the green onions in a meat grinder fitted with a 1/4-inch die.

Add the rice, and the remaining salt, cayenne, black pepper, parsley, and green onions and mix well. Add the broth, slowly, and mix.

Stuff the mixture into sausage casings or otherwise utilize the mixture. If stuffed into casing it should be heated in a steamer or rice cooker. Heat in oven or on the grill for a crisp casing. Serve warm. Freeze leftovers.


closely (accept I was short on onions- forgoet to get more at store & and the pork/liver mix may have been a little heavey... (about 1/2 lb extra liver for the whole 4 batches)

but… its sort of dry and crumbley in texture. (thats what I am trying to fix)

And it was a little to hot for my teen age boys... that could be good or bad depending on how yo look at it, and purhpas a little heavy on rice... I am on a low Carb diet.


Do I need to add some sort of binder… perhaps some pig fat? (I asked my butcher for some pig fat last week. Got 25 lb bag fresh the next day, for 5 bucks. (Put it in 2 lb vacume pacs and put in freezer) can you amagin being being excited about a good buy on pig fat! I have this bug bad!

Anyway… how do I fix it!

thanks
mikeh53

[salmonclubber]

try using a binder such as powdered milk it will help so will the added fat
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[mgwerks]

I'm thinking that there are a couple of issues at play here. First, it really needs some fat. I use about 20-25% fat and 75-80% meat. Non-fat sausage doesn't work.

Second, the rice. It may be a silly question, but is it cooked first? If dry or even if it's undercooked, it will soak up a bunch of your moisture in the sausage. The powdered milk is a good call as well, but it might take a bit extra liquid for it as well.
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[mikeh53]

Thanks Guys for the answers

Rice is cooked... (Will likly leave it out compleatly next time) I will try adding a little pig fat... might add some flavor to.

Mike

[Harry Nutczak]

I am in agreement with lack of fat too. What type of pork roast did you use?
A butt is about 85/15 lean to fat these days due to selective breeding and "The other White meat" campaign making the quality of pork less than palatable over the last20 some years Long ago that lean/fat ratio was nearer 70/30.


Hogs used to be breed for huge amounts of fat for lard production. now they are looking for less fat, longer loins, quick weight gain, lighter color meat and less fat in the belly.

I am finding I need to add fat to my sausage recipes instead of relying on the fat on a butt. I bet your sausage would be perfect if you used a hog raised on a farm from an heirloom breed instead of lean factory raised hogs meat.
With the starch content of Boudin Blanc, you could probably be near 40% fat and not have a greasy sausage.

Plain and simple, Sausage needs fat, no less than 20% and no more than 50% (depending on what you're making)

I am not a proponent of using binders and emulsifying agents, encapsulated citric acid fermento and all that other fluff. great sauages have been made for millenia without the additives, but pigs were fatter too. I do use starter cultures to produce lactic acid in my dry-cured stuff since leaving that up to nature could be deadly.
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[k.a.m.]

mikeh53, I don't make sausage but I eat a lot of boudain. Here in southeast Texas most boudain to me is just a rice dressing that comes apart as you mentioned, so I always steam it before I smoke it. When I go to Louisiana to visit my relatives I alway bring home what I call real boudain, the meat mixture is a much higher ratio to the rice. I guess my point is like everyone else has said, you might need some more fat or liquid, rice is like a sponge cooked or not it seems it alway has room to suck up gravy.
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