Polish sausage help.

[nelson11b]

I’m a new guy to this community and glad to see a lot of good information here. I am trying to figure out if dehydrated lactose/milk is being used in polish sausage. I just ordered a polish blend from waltons and I want it to be a better experience than last time. Any help would be great.

Cheers,
Matt N
Loveland, CO

[lkrfletcher]

Hi Matt,
Good to see another Colorado person on here. Welcome to the Community and GO TEAM BLUE!

As far as the polish sausage goes, I did a batch a while ago and just used the seasoning and water per instructions and it came out great. I didn’t do any additional additives.

[YooperDog]

nelson11b welcome to the site. I have made Polish sausage from package seasonings and my own recipes and never added lactose. Checking through my books I don’t see any Polish sausage recipes calling for lactose. Go Team Orange

[s.a.m]

nelson11b what happened the last time you made it to question the out come?

[nelson11b]

I had 3 problems. The first being I believe I ground it to fine, 3/8 then 1/8. Second I used pork and pronghorn and not sure I hit the ratio right. Third, I didn’t follow the cooking instructions, so… I have some Walton polish seasoning showing up today and I will give it a shot later this week.

[YooperDog]

nelson11b what was your fat ratio. I am not sure about pronghorn, but I suspect it is pretty lean. Try maybe adding some pork trimmings to increase fat content w/o changing the ratios much. I make a lot of traditional style fresh and smoked Polish and a have a mix of coarse and fine ground and many types fine ground. What was the issue with your batch? Are you making fresh or cured?

[nelson11b]

I was mixing 80/20 and I think I will stay closer to the guidelines

[KenfromMI]

50/50 mix is only about 15% fat. I’m guessing you are around only about 6% which in my opinion isn’t close to enough fat for a decent sausage. I make a lot of fresh and smoked kielbasa and I tried to make it leaner but it never turned out as well as when I went 50/50. Without wild game kielbasa is about 30% fat.

[nelson11b]

Maybe I should try Game/pork 50/50 then

[processhead]

I do quite a bit of venison sausage and I would highly recommend increasing your fat content. If you can find mostly fat pork trimmings you would be good at 70/30. Most pork butts are too lean unless you go to 50/50 or higher when mixing with venison for many sausage styles.

[nelson11b]

That’s great help I will give it a shot

[KenfromMI]

I tried for several years using less pork. I was in a market in Hamtramck Michigan that makes the best Kielbasa on the planet. I was talking to the owners son about making kielbasa with Venison and mine was coming out dry after smoking but I was stopping at 152 internal. He asked how much pork and I said 20% to try to keep it healthier. He said Kielbasa isn’t supposed to be healthy bump it to 50/50 and then gave me a sample of his with that mix. I never looked back. LOL

[nelson11b]

Thanks man I will give it my best

[cdavis]

nelson11b welcome aboard. That’s what I like about this community. Someone asks a question and I learn a lot from it.

[Jonathon]

nelson11b Yes, as KenfromMI says, for a classic Polish or Kielbasa you need higher fat content. There really isn’t a way to use less fat and get similar results. I’ve read recently that some people are using boiled quinoa to replace fat and I’d like to get a hold of whoever started that trend! However…I also feel like I need to experiment with it to see if it actually works. There have been things I have been resistant to in the past that I ended up loving.

[KenfromMI]

Now I have made a virtually fat free breakfast sausage in the patty style. You use a pound of ground mushrooms for every pound of venison. Since mushrooms are 90% water it keeps the venison moist like fat but I’m pretty sure that would fail in a casing.

[KenfromMI]

Jonathon There are sausages that use other grains as additives in them so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work unless you are making a smoked sausage.

[Jonathon]

KenfromMI It won’t let me upvote your post from some reason but the mushrooms is a good tip for some people. I am not a fan of mushrooms so it wouldn’t work for me though! The boiled quinoa is supposedly used most often in fermented sausage but we will give it a shot in a few. If I am going to spend the time doing fermented then I am going to be adding pork fat!

[KenfromMI]

I’m pretty new to this site. What do you mean upvote?

[processhead]

KenfromMI That would be a “Thumbs Up”