Sausage making question.

[cayenneman]

Okay so Im no newb for the most part as Ive been making several different sausages for close to 10 years now. The thing with mine are they are usually, meat, spice, stuff and eat. I smoke several kinds as well. From browsing the word I see threads talking about these powders and binders and stuff that people add to their sausage. Ive never used these before and really don’t know what they are for. Any advice on that is welcomed! My main question is that I have a few recipes that have a lot of spices in them and I think the texture is slightly off. Could it be that the spices are altering the bind and I need to add a binder to tighten it up a bit? For instance a curry sausage I make has a bit of curry powder in addition to other spices. Anyway, Im learning as I go and its a wonderful learning experience, so any advice or resources would be great. Thanks.

[deplorablenc1]

@cayenneman you sound exactly like I pretty much was over the last 24 years or so. I never used a binder and I always mixed my own spices to stuff into sausages I have made. Honestly I cant speak for the binders as I still have never tried any so I cant give an opinion. But I can say that the pre seasoned packages from Waltons are the best I have ever made. Everything I have tried has been superb to anything I could blend. You will get a while lot of responses on the benefits just not from me…yet…good luck and I hope to see pics on jere from your making!

[blackbetty61]

@cayenneman I’ve only been using binders for a year, before that I never used them either until finding Walton’s website. From what I gather is the binder helps the fat bind to the meat so there’s less of a chance of fat out which is when the fat gets between the casing and meat and it helps your meat retain moisture…I believe…by the way your at the right place…meatgistics has a ton of good information, I’ve only tried the carrot fiber one can’t speak of the other ones but the carrot fiber holds a lot of water Walton’s has some great videos on binders and such

[Jonathon]

@cayenneman What @blackbetty61 says about the binders is true, it is the best thing to add to help prevent fatting out. The Sure Gel and the Soy Protein Blend both speed up and help with protein extraction as they are adding more protein to the mix and they are designed to “gum up” and bind things together. The Carrot Fiber doesn’t add any protein but it can hold up to 26 times its weight in water so it does a great job in keeping your sausage moist. The Super Bind is a blend of Carrot Fiber and Potato Starch. It gives you the water holding ability of the carrot and the potato starch turns into a gel at just about the same temperature as meat will start to expel its water, so it absorbs all of that and keeps it in the sausage.

Ingredients of the seasoning absolutely play a role in forming the consistency of the sausage, this is especially true of salt content. If you are looking to firm up your sausage my first recommendation would be to follow @deplorablenc1’s advice and go with a pre-packaged seasoning. However, if you want to keep using your homemade recipe then I would use either Super Bind or Sure Gel, the Super Bind is a little more expensive than the other binders but it is worth it when trying to correct a problem.

Post pics when it is done!