🍖 Kielbasa

Recipe from Ethan Chlebowski

Ingredients

Ingredients by percentage

All ingredients are % of meat; for 1000g meat, 1.75% = 17.5g.

  • 70% Lean / 30 % Fat Pork Meat (or beef, venison, etc.)
  • 1.75% Salt
  • 1.75% Brown Sugar
  • 0.5% Black Pepper
  • 0.25% Cure #1
  • 0.187% Garlic Powder
  • 0.125% Whole Mustard Seed
  • 0.0625% Pickling Spice*
  • 0.0313% Marjoram
  • Water
  • Sausage Casings

*For the pickling spice, I didn't have any on hand so I cobbled up the following:

Equal parts:

  • dried bay leaves
  • allspice berries (or powdered) (can sub junpier berries)
  • coriander seeds (or powdered)
  • ground ginger

Toast the whole spices in a dry pan, then roughly grind them in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder.

Other optional spices are cardamom, star anise, cinnamon.

I also increased the mustard seed a touch because I like it.

Ingredients calculator

It's really important to get the salt and cure quantities precise; the spices are definitely flexible.

  • grams of 70% Lean / 30 % Fat Pork Meat (or beef, venison, etc.)
  • ? Salt
  • ? Brown Sugar
  • ? Black Pepper
  • ? Cure #1
  • ? Garlic Powder
  • ? Whole Mustard Seed
  • ? Pickling Spice
  • ? Marjoram
  • Water
  • Sausage Casings

    • Directions

    Multiply the meat by the percentages of spices.

    For example, 454 grams of pork X 0.0175 (1.75%) gives you around 8 grams of salt.

    1. Mix the measured spices into cold meat chunks (or ground meat if using). Note: the meat grinds better if very cold, almost frozen.
    2. Add the meat to the grinder and push it through. Once the meat is ground, pour water over it and start mixing it by hand. There aren't specific measurements for the amount of water this is more of a by feel thing to see how much you want to add. Mix by hand, add water and adjust as needed.. At the end of the process, the meat should clump together and even sticks to your hand without falling. Note: At this point, you have loose kielbasa that can be fried up as a burger for a delicious lunch.
    3. Fill the sausage stuffing container with the kielbasa. Place the casing over the tube and slowly extrude the sausage into the casing.
    4. Once the sausage is stuffed, twist into links by pinching together and twisting the casing.
    5. Hang the sausages to dry for a few hours until the outside casing is no longer wet.
    6. Meanwhile set up the smoker (weber grill, smokehouse, electric smoker, etc).
    7. Smoke the kielbasa until the internal temperature reaches 150 F (65 C).
    8. Rinse or immerse with cold water to bring the sausages back to room temperature, then leave them on a rack to "bloom" for about 2 hrs (this will deepen their color to a nice dark red).
    9. Enjoy the kielbasa with sauerkraut, on sandwiches, etc. Freeze any extra.