butcher vs supemarket

i am a qualified  butcher for more than 20 years ,I am  hear to share with with  i have learned over the years 

and what to look out for 

as i update my blog i will post pictures of sausages and what to look out for 

1 tip at the moment is if their in a plastic skin also known as a synthetic casings avoid.

 yes it is safe for us to eat the edible plastic .

it also takes a while for our bodies to breakdown this product 

the sausage will also be rubbery and hard this is not how a sausage should look.

always look for natural casings' will give you a far better product the sausage should give a snap sound after cooking these sausages will not split on you .

the most reason sausages will split will be to much filling or to much water like the amount of water in those mushy paste sausages from the supermarket.

a good sausage should be a pale reddish pink colour

if is brown don't touch it as the meat was meant to be thrown out or the skins had become out of date and or off  tis is bad pratice on the butcher behalf

BBQ sausages should not be pasty fatty or watery a good rule of thumb 8% natural fat with beef 10%water 5%

so a 5 kg batch of sausages for Italian would be 2.5kg beef chuck steak and for pork 2.5 kg of pork neck or shoulder 100ml water perk kilo so this would be 500ml 18 gm salt per kg 6gms pepper per kilo 20 grams garlic and fennels for 33 kilo i always go by eye with garlic and fennel as i love these to flavors' and i always add a handful of chilies and Pasley to give those green flecks in Italian sausages all run though the course place i would always replace half of the water with red wine so above i would've 250ml water 25o ml red wine

1 kilo of binder ie rice flour arrowroot flour or bread crumbs some Italian snags don't require binder but for me as a butcher its not their to make the sausage go further its their to absorb the natural fat from the meat and this is what give you the juicy sausage. 

oh and please for heaven sake don't prick your sausages as your letting all the flavors out of the sausage 

so when your buying sausages from the supermarket you are buying sausages with lot of fat way to much binders ever wonder  why they are o cheap is because it made with a lot of water binder and fatty

 

will update more soon with pic of good the bad and the ugly sausages from butchers and supermarkets