ORIGINAL: Big Guy01
post your recipe and I can tell you if its a balanced mix. Question #1 how are you stuffing the sausage? using the grinder or a stuffer ? At what temp is your meat when grinding. and when was the last time your grinder plate was lapped true and the knife sharpened.
a dull knife or untrue (flat) plate can smear the meat mix and make it mushy, so can warm temp of the meat, it should be as near freezing as possible, the same goes for mixing, cold is good. Its possible you are over working the meat mix if you are trying to stuff through your grinder. If using the grinder have you removed the plate and knife and replaced them with a spacer?
The recipe usally are from a sausage house already pre-mixed. I am using the grinder to stuff the sausage and when I stuff I do remove the knife & plate and use the spacer and the proper size stuffing tube. The water I use cimes from my well and is quite cold but I don't think it is 32 deg. Sholud I set in frezzerfor a time period? The meat is always at a temp around 35 deg when mixed.
As far as the knife and plates goes, I have replaced the knife several times to be sure I have a sharp one on. The plates are the originals and appear to be flat. What is having your plate lapped true mean? How do you go about doing that?
What do you mean over worked the meat using your grinder? I put the venison and pork thru the grinder using the largest hole plate, then I put the meat thru the smallest hole plate for a second finer choppped meat. Then I remove the plates, knife and put the spacer and stuffer tube on and put the fine ground meat thru and into the casings. Italian sausage or summer sausage or any just dont look like this .................your meat texture is solid and hard packed
ORIGINAL: Big Guy01
