Texas Style Kielbasa Sausage

If you have never made sausage before, this is the one to start with! A perfect kielbasa with no overpowering flavors, its absolutely amazing on its own, or as a place to start for just about any Kielbasa recipe!

YouTube Instructional: https://youtu.be/wuj9pGWugrY

Ingredients:
1360g Pork Butt (3lb)
907g Brisket Meat (2lb)
6g Pink Salt #1 (~1tsp)
40g Kosher Salt (10.5 tsp)
17g Paprika (2 Tbsp)
3 Garlic Cloves
~1/3 Cup Beer (Lager style) or Water
10g Black Pepper (1 Tbsp)
1/2 Cup Nonfat Milk Powder
32-35mm Natural Hog Casings

Step 1: Trim and chunk the brisket and pork butt

Trim off anything really funky on either the brisket or the pork butt

Cut up the remaining meat into appx 1-2 inch strips. Making sure that the resulting size will easily fit into your grinder

Put into the freezer and leave until they the meat is just about to freeze

Also put the metal parts of your grinder into the freezer as well!

Step 2: Measure out dry seasonings

Using an accurate metric scale, measure out the pink salt, kosher salt, paprika, black pepper, and nonfat milk powder

Be careful to use exactly the amount or ratio of pink salt!

Step 3: Grind the Brisket, Pork Butt, and Garlic

Using a Medium grind plate, grind together the brisket and the pork butt

Toss in the garlic cloves as you grind through the mixture as well.

Once you have everything ground, grind the meat for a second time - this will help us get a better texture in the sausage!

Step 4: Mix in the Dry seasoning and liquid

Sprinkle the dry seasoning across the meat mixture and pour in your beer or water

By hand (or with a sausage paddle mixer) completely mix together the ingredients

You should be done mixing when the fat starts to smear and the meat sticks to your hand for a few seconds

At this point you can fry up a small amount of the meat to make sure it has the flavor profile you want!

Step 5: Case the sausage

Fill up your sausage stuffer, and put the hog casings onto the chute

slowly fill up the sausages to about 10 inches

Tie off both ends of the sausage and then tie the ends together into a C shape

Repeat until you have cased all of the sausage meat

If you have any major air pockets, poke them with a toothpick

Lay the finished sausages on a wire rack and put into the fridge uncovered!

Step 6: Cold Smoke the Kielbasa

Fill up a smoke tube or box and light one end.

Hang up your sausages somewhere you can fill with smoke - I used my propane grill with the grates removed

Smoke for 3-4 hours

Step 7: Hot Smoke the Kielbasa

Move the cold smoked kielbasa directly from the cold smoker to your hot smoker.

Smoke at 180-225 until the internal is appx 150 degrees

Step 8: Ice Bath

Move the now cooked sausages directly to an ice bath for 10-15 minutes

At this point the sausages have been completely cured, and are fully cooked. They can be eaten cold, frozen and reheated later, or just thrown back onto the hot smoker to warm up and eaten right away!

Enjoy!