(flames roaring)
- I'm Dave, and this is Austin Eats.
I live in Austin, Texas where there are
a lot of really great barbecue joints.
Today I'm making a local barbecue favorite,
Texas hot links.
These are spicy German-style sausages
that are smoked low and slow and full of flavor.
They're surprisingly easy to make, they taste great,
and they're right here on Austin Eats.
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I have two and a half pounds of prime chuck roast
that I'm going to cut into one-inch cubes.
Then I'm going to mix that with two and a half pounds
of pork shoulder that I've also cut into one-inch cubes.
I'll mix these together
and put them in the freezer for 30 minutes.
I'll also put the grinder attachment in the freezer.
Why? Because cold meat is much easier to grind.
While that's cooling down, I'll make the spice mixture.
It's kosher salt, some ground black pepper, garlic powder,
onion powder, cayenne pepper,
and of course, lots of paprika.
Then to heat it up a little bit,
some red pepper flakes, some mustard powder,
some dried thyme, and of course,
a little bit of Instacure or Prague powder.
I'll mix those together and set it aside.
So my meat and my grinder attachment are nice and cold,
so time to start out with a coarse grind.
Yes, I do grind it twice,
it just a make much better product.
After that first grind, I'm going to add in the spice mix
a little at a time and really mix it well.
You want to be careful not to grab the meat and condense it.
You don't want to make balls here.
You just wanna toss it gently
to get all of those spices incorporated.
I then changed the grinder plate to a finer grind
and ran it through one more time.
This is looking good.
I've now changed the attachment
of my grinder to the sausage stuffer,
and put the natural casing on the stuffer tube.
I ran into a lot of problems
using my meat grinder to stuff the sausage.
The first five inches of sausage worked just fine,
but then the machine bogged down
and I had a lot of trouble getting the meat
to go through the sausage stuffing tube.
Then I noticed that the characteristic
of the meat just changed.
These are two ends of the same sausage.
The end on the right is what
it's supposed to look like, with nice ground chunks.
The one on the left looks more like a hot dog.
This is not what it's supposed to look like.
That meat is ground way too fine.
So I abandoned this approach
and instead picked up a real sausage stuffer.
Now this model is found on the internet
and it will hold five pounds of meat.
First, I have to put the natural casing
onto the sausage stuffing tube, and when it's all on,
just tie a knot in the end
and this thing is ready to start stuffing.
That looks pretty good.
Now it's just a matter of pushing down on the lever
and out comes the sausage.
This was much easier,
and it did not change the grind of the meat at all.
Now, an important point to note
when you're working with natural casings.
They can have holes in them and they can tear.
Well, if you tear one, it's a really easy thing to fix,
because I just tore one right here.
Yep, that's a hole.
So just grab some twine and wrap it around the sausage
and tie it down and then trim off the excess sausage.
It's just that simple.
Now, assuming that you don't tear the sausage,
you extrude as much as you want
and in this case it was about 16 inches.
Then I tied it off, cut the sausage,
and then put a kink right smack in the middle
because well, that's what Texas hot links look like.
Then just trim the ends and set it aside.
Time to light the smoker.
(torch flame roaring)
(upbeat music)
I've set up my smoker for indirect heat.
These hot links are going to go in at 200 degrees
and smoke low and slow with some Mesquite chips
until the internal temperature hits 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
That took just about three hours.
(upbeat music)
When the sausages were done smoking,
I took them off the smoker and put them
right into an ice water bath to stop the cooking.
That helps prevent shrinkage of the sausages.
Then put them on a rack and let them just
air out at room temperature for a couple of hours.
When that's done, slice them up, grill them in a pan,
and you've got a wonderful Texas hot link sausage.
Hey, if you like the video, let me know,
and please subscribe.
I have new videos coming out every week.
See you next time on Austin Eats.
(upbeat percussion music)