Boosh Andouille

Well, yesterday I spent about 10 hours making Andouille, and today I spent about six hours smoking it on the Webber. Well, my brother helped with the smoking. We also managed to build a bike shed, but that's hardly the point. I made the recipe at http://www.nolacuisine.com/2005/11/14/andouille-sausage-recipe/ with some small changes. Namely:
My Boston Butt was about 4-4.5 pounds
I used 4 tablespoons of cayenne powder
I cut only 1/4 of the meat into chunks. The chunks clogged my Kitchenaid sausage stuffer so for the last of 3 sausages I reground it.

Finding curing salt is definitely something you should do before trying to make sausage. I figured my local butcher shop (McKinnons in Davis Square) would have it, but it did not (or they were out of it). Market Basket, which sometimes sells casing, also didn't have it. Eventually I found a small spice store (Christina's on Cambridge St) which, after asking the clerk, did in fact have curing salt. Unfortunately, the clerk did not know what ratio the salt was to the sodium nitrite. Ah well.

The sausages have now been smoking for three hours. In another half hour or so I'll take them off, then hang them on the porch for the night, and freeze two tomorrow. One I'm definitely eating tomorrow.

Relaunch of Aqua Vitae

While surfing through my old websites, I came across this remainder from college. I am now a pretty prolific brewer, and I plan to use this blog to chronicle my beer adventures, misadventures, and occasional sausage making excursions.

Anyways, I hope this interests people, because beer and food are pretty much my favorite material things.