Home Sausage Fattie Maker

2007-09-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

(Click on Pictures for a full size view, use your browser's Back button to return)

Visit my other "Home Maker" Pictorial "How To" Sites.

Go to the Home Sausage Maker

Go to the Home Corned Beef Maker

Go to the Home Beef Jerky Maker

Let's Get Started!

2007-09-08T15:05:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'm glad you found my site with information about making and grilling Sausage Fatties. Thanks for the visit, and I hope you take away some good information on how to make your own delicious Sausage Fatties.

On the odd chance that you arrived here and don't know what a Sausage Fattie is, here's a bit of history and explaination. Some enterprising BBQ or Outdoor grilling cook came up with the idea of buying a commercially produced breakfast sausage log, placing it whole on the outdoor grill, and slow grilling it to a safe internal temperature. Whatever could be simpler? Just remove the plastic wrap and place it on the grill. It makes a delicious smoked/grilled sausage log. Not to be outdone, someone else decided to roll the raw log on dry spice rubs of various kinds, such as steak rubs to impart even more flavor. This usually produces a sausage log with a very nice flavorful outside crust. Well, if we can spice up the outside, why not stuff the log with all manner of goodies, mushrooms, onions, peppers, you get the idea. Oh, and despite the name, after the sausage log is fully cooked, and the fat content has bound the meat, and the result is no more fatty than any other prepared sausage.

Very simple! You could stop now, and take the above idea away with no further need of information and amaze your dinner guests with your new culinary skill.

But, I can never leave a good idea alone, so I am here to present some additional information and some detailed pictorial steps. Mainly, after making my own sausage, I'm just not satisfied with commercially produced sausage anymore. I like to actually know what meats go into my sausage, the approximate fat content, and I like to experiment with different spices and flavors. So that's the reason for producing the Home Sausage Fattie Maker web site.

Next Page

Previous Page

The Two "C"s

2007-09-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, are the two “C”s that should always be followed.

Clean and Cold.

Clean: The very last thing that you want to do while making your home sausage fattie is to make up a batch that makes you and your family sick. So, before you start, be sure that your work area and all tools are Clean. Wash them with dish soap, preferably with anti-bacterial properties. Rinse them well. The counter tops should be cleaned with a disinfectant spray. You can add a small amount of laundry bleach to your favorite spray cleaner. Keep the work surface clean as you go. Use paper towels, lots of paper towels, and frequently discard them as you go. A cloth towel will pick up bacteria and possibly just spread it around, even tho the surface may look clean. Paper towels will carry your bad bugs away to the trash can. They are much, much cheaper than a late night visit to your local emergency room.

Cold: Keep the meats Cold. Usually your meat will be purchased and frozen until you get enough time to run your batch of sausage. Take the meat from the freezer a day or two in advance of your run. Thaw in your regular refrigerator, not out on the counter tops. The meat works best if it is still slightly frozen when you begin working with it. If you must stop working during a run, place the meat back into your refrigerator until you can re-start. You can’t be too careful. Low temperatures will retard the growth of those bad bugs.

Important: This tutorial is designed to show you how to make Fresh, Perishable Sausage Food. These sausages rolls must be fully cooked before consumption. You should refrigerate your sausages after you make them. They will keep well for a few days under normal refrigeration. But, if you don't plan to cook and use them within a few days, you must freeze them for longer term storage. Some people have expressed concern about freezing the meats made from previously frozen meat. Here's a link to the USDA web site where they discuss re-freezing meats.

What the USDA says about meat safety and re-freezing meats

Please use your own judgment about freezing your sausages. If in doubt, fully cook them before you package and freeze them.

Next Page

Previous Page

Making the Sausage Rolls

2007-09-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

As I have said, I like to make and grind my own meats and spice them to my favorite sausage spice recipes. Commercially prepared breakfast sausage makes a fine Sausage Fattie, but it's never quite as good or satisfying as sausage you make up yourself.

I will provide a link to my Home Sausage Maker web site at the end of this tutorial that has complete information for making and grinding sausage, step-by-step! The difference is that we do not need to pack the sausage in casings for the Sausage Fatties, but simply grind and shape into a roll.

Commercially produced breakfast sausage comes packaged in one pound rolls. We will follow that lead here, weighing out the freshly ground sausage in one pound increments. As you can tell, I like my sausage coarsely ground. You may grind it a second time if you prefer, or use a smaller grind plate in your grinder. Isn't it nice to be able to customize your sausage to suite you own requirements?

After the sausage us ground, simply form into rolls, and package for refrigeration. I like to use the Food Saver machine to vacumn pack the meat for safety and cleanliness. Be sure to mark each package before you refrigerate. It takes only a minute, and eliminates any confusion about what's in the package as well as when it was packaged.

Next Page

Previous Page

Stuffing Ideas

2007-09-04T16:29:00.000-05:00

You may or my not choose to stuff your Sausage Fattie. The sausage roll is ready to go straight to the BBQ/Grill if you prefer. I include this section to give you a few ideas of what you might want to try in your Sausage Fattie. Here's where your own imagination and creativity can come into play.

Pablano

Mushroon and Sweet Onion, finely chopped and sliced. The onion and mushroom shown here is actually way too much for one Fattie.

The Sausage roll was flattened out on a piece of plastic wrap. The mushroom and onion was placed on the sausage, and the plastic wrap helped

to form the roll.

I had a package of frozen Roasted Hatch Green Chili Peppers from last year's crop. Hatch Chili's from Hatch, New Mexico are very popular in this part of the country. These were roasted, the skins removed, diced and packaged for the freezer. Form the roll into a "boat" shape, into which you can insert the Chili's. I added a bit of the chopped Sweet Onion, as I had so much already minced up. The plastic wrap again helps shape the sausage back into a roll shape.

And here are both rolls, stuffed and ready for the Grill!

Next Page

Previous Page

Grillin' the Sausage Fatties

2007-09-03T19:09:00.000-05:00

OK! So we are finally at the fun part -- well one of the fun parts -- Grilling our home made Sausage Fattie Rolls. For me there's just no substitute for a real charcoal grill. One you can have some control over the air-flow, and therefore control the heat. It helps a great deal if the grill has a temperature indicator for the overall grill space, and it is also critical that the unit is large enough for you to offset the charcoal fire away from the cooking meat. Finally, the grill should be made of a metal thick enough to retain and moderate heat. Sheet metal, no matter the shape is just not going to cut it in my book. My personal choice for my backyard, and my level and volume of BBQ and Grilling is this Oklahoma Joe's model. It does have the offset firebox, but the main area is large enough that I rarely have to build the charcoal fire in the offset box. It is made of 1/4 inch thick steel, which holds and moderates the heat from the charcoal quite well.

So here we have the two Sausage Fattie rolls just after they were placed on the grill. Notice that the charcoal fire has been built over to the right. The Fatties are not directly over the coals,

but in the hot air flow that will be exiting the chimney to the left. If you place them over the coals, they will get too hot, too fast, the fats will cook out all at once, and the fat drippings will flare up and burn your Fatties to a crisp. Adjust the airflow gate intake on the lower box, and the exit dampner on the top of the chimney pipe. Watch the temp gague on the lid, and try to keep the fires and temps inside moderated to around 350 F. This is not a precise adjustment, but if you watch your grill, you can make the adjustment to air intake that will keep you in the ball park. That's all you really need.

Monitor the cooking process inside the grill. Don't go opening up the lid every few minites, or you will release all the heat, and you will never get any cooking done. Check things out every 15 minutes or so, depending on the inside temperature recorded on your lid thermometer. Use your own judgment. Turn the Fattie about 1/4 turn each time once it has become firm enough to move with thongs. If you try to move it too early in the cook cycle, it will fall apart, so don't get into too much of a hurry. It won't burn, it's not located over the coals. After an hour or so on the grill, start monitoring the internal temperature with a meat thermometer. Depending on the meat in your sausage and the grill temps., it's not hard to get a good even cook and a safe internal temperature. You might notice that I was moving a rack of pork ribs and foil wrapped potatoes around as well on this cook.

When the meat thermometer says the internal temperature is high enough for the type of meat your sausage is made of, take the Fattie off the grill, take it in and let it rest for 15 minutes or so, while you finish preparing the rest of the items for your meal. If you let it cook past the point that the temperature is finished, you will begin drying the Fattie out. So watch it carefully as it nears being done.

Slice the Fattie into thick medallions and enjoy! Don't forget that left-over medallions of the Fattie are exceptionally good on a home made biscuit the next morning. Fast food joints have never made a sausage biscuit anywhere near as good, they just don't have the best sausage available to them!

Home

Previous Page

And Here's a Link to my Home Sausage Maker site for details about grinding and making the sausage.

Go to the Home Sausage Maker