Published by Texas Monthly, made possible through the generosity of Evan LeRoy, pitmaster at Freedmen’s Bar, Austin, TX.
Published by Texas Monthly, made possible through the generosity of Evan LeRoy, pitmaster at Freedmen’s Bar, Austin, TX.
Cut the meat into cubes. Season the cubed meat the day before you plan to grind and case it (the pink salt needs about a day to cure).
Freedmen’s grinds the mixture once through a coarse grinding plate, and then mixes it thoroughly by hand until it goes from crumbly to tacky. (A tip from Ruhlman, which should help keep ingredients cold throughout the process. Place the meat and grinder attachments in the freezer before grinding, and chilling the meat thoroughly in the refrigerator before mixing and stuffing.)
At this point, you can either create sausage links or keep the meat as sausage patties.
Once the links are done, it’s ready to smoke. Put the sausage at the coldest end of the pit so it gets a lot of smoke and the casing has time to dry out and get snappy.