I just made up six pounds of fresh breakfast sausage using venison, pork fat and your Excaliber seasonings. I then go ahead and make patties, put parchment paper between them, bag 'em and freeze 'em. As I was working, it occurred to me that with a lot of my meat processing and smoking, I seem to get more flavor if the meat rests in the refrigerator at least overnight. My question is this: In regard to fresh breakfast patties, has anyone tried mixing the seasonings in and letting the meat sit overnight in the fridge before making the patties and freezing. I’m wondering if that would enhance the flavor or perhaps make it more consistent throughout the meat. If I’m wondering this, then I bet someone else has actually done a comparison.
I’ve always just put in bulk bags and frozen, then when i want patties, i just cut the bag into patties. I’ve never had any issues with the flavors not being well distributed. Are you using a patty maker? It’d be a lot of work to make up a bunch of breakfast patties by hand.
I usually only do maybe 4-6 pounds at a time, Tex, so I’m patting them out by hand. Mostly my question was about taking the mixed sausage straight to the freezer vs. “resting” it in the fridge overnight, whether that would make any difference in flavor. I know when I smoke whole chickens or super-thick porkchops, the smoke flavor seems to work its way even deeper into the meat when it’s had a rest in the refrigerator. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I don’t think so.
When you mix almost any food and seasoning together, the longer they sit together, the more the flavors blend. A pot of homemade soup is a perfect example. Almost always tastes better the second or third day after its made.
Kentucky Fisherman makes sense letting the seasoning mingle with everything…like when I make a French onion dip outta of onion soup mix packet always tastes better the next day… I have never done a comparison though. IMO sausage always tastes different after it’s in the freezer or when I fry some for the sampler before I stuff
Letting it sit overnight in the fridge definitely helps the flavor. I’ve noticed that with any sausage I’ve made (and soups and stews and . . . .)
Kentucky Fisherman It’s not so much that the smoke flavor gets deeper but that you can smell it more. Just about everyone’s sniffer acclimates to smoky aromas very quickly and deeply. If you’ve been tending the pit, you wind up with a head full of smoke by the end, so you don’t pick up the smoky aroma and flavor as easily as others do. When you get to the next day, you’ve worked it all out, and there’s the smoke. That’s happened to me every time.
I usually grind, mix, package, freeze in that order. My wife makes pecan pies, AWARD winning pecan pies. She always freezes them when cooled and thaws to serve. Taste is way better if frozen and thawed rather than baked and served. Don’t know why?
My point, there is some strange science going on here… Well above my pay grade.
I’m not sure how strange it is. I think flavors and aromas continue to combine on a molecular level over time even after initially running them through a meat mixer or cake mixer or whatever. However it happens, it definitely happens.
Kentucky Fisherman I’ve absolutely noticed that flavor will develop overnight after cooking but I rarely hold before I cook. Now, those are with cured products, with fresh products I don’t think the same thing necessarily applies to fresh sausage. I have made brats and held them for a long time before I cooked them and don’t think they continue to develop. Maybe that is because it is frozen?
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