Sausage Fest: Making Croatian Kobasice (Smoked Sausages) with BGE & AR

danguba78

A while back, before purchasing an adjustable rig from the Ceramic Grill Store, I asked if it was possible to use the AR and Woo to make a "mini smokehouse" to hang homemade sausages for smoking.  I got a lot of helpful tips and measurements from Eggheads, but the consensus was that it might not work (but was worth a shot anyway).  So I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the AR.  A great purchase, by the way, I have found so many uses for it.  And now I found one more: it actually works as a pretty good setup for a smoke shack.   

I wanted to make my grandfather's recipe for "kobasice," which are essentially a Croatian riff on the Slovenian classic kranjske kobasice, or heavily seasoned, heavily smoked, extremely garlicked pork sausages.  I used to do these with extended family when I was a kid and the family still had a smoke house in someone's backyard (in the middle of Chicago, mind you), and so I was hoping to try it with my Egg.  

The recipe is:

·         1000 g Pork shoulder

·         18 g kosher salt

·         2.5 g Cure #1

·         3 g Black pepper, coarsely ground

·         11 g Garlic, minced/mashed

·         45 mL Water

·         30 mL water (for garlic)

·         2.5 g salt (for garlic)

·         10 g half-sharp paprika (optional)

The procedure is:

1. Grind pork through 13/8" (10 mm) plate.
   
2. Crush garlic, food process with water, 30 mL/kg, into a slurry.
3. Mix all spices into garlic slurry. Add additional water, 45 mL/kg.
   
4. Add spices. Mix to primary bind.  Add additional water if necessary.
5. Stuff into 32-34 mm hog casings. Link pairs, tie ends.
6. Hang sausages, approx. 2 hours, until casings are dry and tacky.
7. Light small fire in Egg.
8. Place in Egg, smoke heavily with cherry or oak until brownish/red color obtained.
9. Slowly work grate temp to 160, heavy cherry/oak smoke the entire way may be too much for some people, but I like smoke. Looking for 152 IT.
10. Cold water bath.
11. Bloom for an hour or two.
12. Refrigerate.
13. The sausages are safe to consume, however, they are often boiled in a hot water for a few minutes.  They are better after a few days.

And now for the pics:

After deboning pork shoulder, cutting it into strips, approx 1" by 6", to feed through grinder.  I will take any opportunity to use my big butcher knife.   



Stuffing hog casings:


After linking and tying, hanging them to dry:


Loaded onto the AR.  I did half the traditional way, and the other half with some hot paprika, and you can really see the difference in color before smoking.  This is roughly 6.5 pounds of meat, and I think I could easily get up to 10 pounds with tighter spacing and adding one more dowel.  





I lit the Egg (no pics), using the CGS Ang-L brackets to section off a small section of the firebox, loaded large pieces of lump on the fire grate, placed some splintered chunks of cherry, apple, and post oak, and then sprinkled small pieces of lump.  I'm usually a dump-the-bag-and-forget-it guy, but this is one cook where you have to take the time to place the lump pieces.  It's important not to go above 165-170 grate temp, otherwise you'll "fat out" the sausages.  This technique, which I saw on this forum, worked really, really well.  

AR set atop the Woo ring, with the 19" pizza stones acting as a heat shield.  People in the earlier thread warned it might not be stable, but it definitely was stable enough for me.



4 hours later--you can't really tell which have the paprika and which do not:








Letting them bloom for a couple of hours before refrigerating.




I was really pleased with the results.  When I bit into the first one, I did one of those Steven Raichlen "mmm hmm mmm" noises and shook my head at how good it was.  (I did not, however, say anything like, "The delicate flavor of wood smoke permeates to porquaceous encased meats."  I'm so happy the test run worked out.  Next time, I'll work on my technique and try to make more uniformly sized links.  Thanks for looking.  

20stone

That looks fantastic.  You are a bit heavier on the salt that I would have been, and am interested in how you find the salt level in it (you have 23g of salt (including curing salt) and I would have shot for 15g

The smoking set up looks great.  I have generally done the lazy way, and laid them flat on the grates, but like your method better.

Very nicely done.

SciAggie

Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed reading about your method. Nicely done.

Theophan

WOW!!!  WOW!!!  WOW!!!  Those things look and sound AMAZING!  That is just way too cool!

danguba78

20stone said:

That looks fantastic.  You are a bit heavier on the salt that I would have been, and am interested in how you find the salt level in it (you have 23g of salt (including curing salt) and I would have shot for 15g

The smoking set up looks great.  I have generally done the lazy way, and laid them flat on the grates, but like your method better.

Very nicely done.

That's a really good point.  The original recipe calls for 18g salt per kg of meat, but I tried adding some salt to the garlic slurry to extract more flavor and make the chopping/processing easier.  The finished product were just on the good side of too salty (and I wondered why), so I think what I'll do in the future is drop the salt added to the meat to 15.5 g per kg to account for that.  This forum never fails to provide good info!

I'm really happy with the hanging setup.  It makes for a great looking finished product, and it's like an Egg version of the old school way, triggering all the nostalgia receptors.  I just picked up some hardwood (oak, I believe) dowels from Home Depot, cut to size, and away  went.  Because the AR is a circle and it's up high in the dome because it's on top of the Woo, I cut various different sizes--two at 17", two at 19"--to hang the sausages.  

Canugghead

Nice! bookmarked. What was sausage IT after 4 hours, did you refry before serving? TIA

gdenby

Fine work!

There's a reason Chicago was called "hog butcher to the world." Everybody made sausage.

And really, don't feel shy about grandiloquence. A fine encased meat product is one of the foundation of a cultured and refined civilization!

danguba78

IT was 153 after 4 hours.  I took out of the Egg, let them bloom for a while, and then to the fridge.  Typically, they are simmered in water.  I've never tried frying, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't....or do a poach-fry, start with some water, poach them to get them close to temp, and finish by browning in the same pan once the water has evaporated....hmm, I may have to try that.

Canugghead

Thanks, yes I poach fry when I'm too lazy to fire up the grill.  Poach fry works great for bacon too.

lkapigian

caliking

Stellar. You had my attention at "extremely garlicked pork sausage". 

Bobak's in Burr Ridge used to have pretty good garlic sausage when we lived in Chicago. 

XC242

Wow. That's it, that's all I got. Wow. 

blasting

great post, thanks for taking the time.

Legume

I'm usually not the guy to open a thread that starts with sausage fest, but this is excellent.  Glad I did.

Budaman5000

Those look really good... job well done

Foghorn

Outstanding.  Very impressive.

That's a lot of work for one person.   

danguba78

I did have some help from my (very understanding) wife.  

Verndog

Wow this is a fantastic post!  It looks and sounds wonderful. One reason I like to check this Awesome forum daily. My friends from Chicago always bring sausages when they come to visit us in Arizona. Thanks again I hope to try this someday. 

nolaegghead

Nice post.  You had me at "Sausage Fest".

blasting

Legume said:

I'm usually not the guy to open a thread that starts with sausage fest, but this is excellent.  Glad I did.

No excuses needed.  We all ended up here by clicking a thread titled Sausage Fest.

victor1

Wow!  My wife's side of the family is Croation and this is a favorite,  We have a small, local meat market that makes it a couple of time a year using a recipe from my wife's grandfather.  Always a treat.  Croation chicken also.

bluebird66

Those look great!!