Kielbasa
Ah, what can I say. This is one of those recipe's that we only had at special times of the year. Well, until several members of the family obtained their own sausage stuffers. During the early days, Dad (Vic Wuertz) had to negotiate the use of Grandma Amelia's sausage stuffer. This was tough, because of the value of the thing. Remember the parties Dad had in the garage. The polka music with the assembly line. Oh yes, and a few folks just a watching the whole thing with a Coors in hand and Al Holman in the ear.
Nothing like a wringer of sausage cooking in the morning. Boy the smell. Sausage, eggs, toast, and some coffee. Life doesn't get better than this.
Ingredients
| Main Ingredients | |
|---|---|
| 5 lbs | pork (coarsely ground) -- Ask butcher to do a chili grind and only run through grinder 1 time. |
| ~3/4 lbs | pork casings (Order 2 hanks for about 200 pounds of pork... then use left over of 1 hank on next batch) |
| 1 C | water | Garlic Mixture |
1/4 C |
Garlic - Mix (1 bulb or 2 ounces) of garlic with water to make 1 cup. Use a Blender. Then divide the 1 cup mixture into 4 different batches. Each batch would be used in one 5 pound batch of sausage. Therefore each 5 pound batch gets 1/4 cup of garlic/water mixture. |
Spice Mixture for 5 lbs of pork |
| 1/4 C | mustard seed (whole) |
| 2 T | salt (not iodized) - Prefer Morton Kosher salt |
| 1 1/3 T | sugar |
| 1 T | pepper (coarse ground) |
| Hog Casings | |
|---|---|
| 8 oz | 20 - 25 pounds of Sausage |
| 1 Hank | 100 - 125 pounds of Sausage |
Preparation
Preparation for stuffing:
- Mix the spices listed above together.
- Use a Blender to puree the garlic bulb with enough water to make 1 cup.
- Mix 5 lbs of the pork with the spice mixture and only 1/4 c of the garlic mixture from step 2.
- In addition, add 1 cup of water to the 5 pound mix (this helps feed the meat into the casings).
- Stuff mixture into pork casings. Stuff into about a 12" ringer. Put in a plastic bag. Mark the bag and then freeze it.
Preparation for eating:
- Remove sausage ringer from the freezer.
- Boil the sausage ringer in water for 20 minutes.
- After boiling it you can eat it right away. Add a little mustard or eat just plain. You could also brown it a little in a frying pan and eat it with a little mustard. It's almost always used for breakfast with some eggs, coffee and toast. You can eat the leftovers for lunch by wrapping a piece of bread around it with a little mustard.
On 12/22/2019 I used 20 pounds of pork and made the following
- 25 pounds yield
- 16 rings of sausage
- 5 sausage patties for breakfast
- Average 1.5 pound ringers
- Used 7 plastic links of casings
