Mysliwska Sausage - Hunter's Sausage is made of pork & beef & juniper berries

Mysliwska Sausage - Hunter's Sausage is made of pork and beef and prolonged smoking and juniper berries give sausage its unique character. Hunting always was a popular sport in Poland practiced originally by the nobility and even then by only well to do people. A hunter carried a big hunting bag where he kept the necessary tools and food that had to last for a number of days. Mysliwska Sausage was a relatively short, well smoked sausage that would make an ideal food or snack in those circumstances. Juniper gives this sausage its characteristic flavor and creates a special bond between the hunter and the nature.

1.	meat selection	Lean pork - 4.4 lb (2 kg), ham, butt Fatter pork - 5.5 lb (2.5 kg), 80/20 meat - pork butt, shoulder or other. Beef - 1.1 lb (0.5 kg), lean meat Meat total : 5 kg (11 lb).	salt pepper garlic juniper sugar Cure # 1	110 g 7.5 g 5 g 5 g 10 g 14 g	3.5oz 0.26oz 0.17oz 0.17oz 0.35oz ½ oz	5 Tbs. 3 tsp. 2 cloves 3 tsp 2 tsp. 2 tsp.
	ingredients
2.	curing	Cut meat into 2" dimeter pieces and keep pork and beef in separate containers. Mix together 2 tsp Instacure # 1, 2 tsp of sugar and 5 Tbs of salt and divide proportionally between pork and beef. Mix meat with dry mix together and pack tightly in containers (one for each type of meat) to get rid of air. Cover with parchment or leave some space on top of the containers and cover with a lid. Place in refrigerator for 72 hrs.
3.	grinding	Grind lean pork with ½" (13 mm) plate, fat pork with ¼" or ⅜" (8 mm) plate. Grind beef twice through ⅛" (2 - 3 mm) plate.
4.	mixing	Add 20 - 25 % of cold water in relation to the weight of the beef (about ½ cup) into the ground beef and mix well with remaining ingredients (juniper, garlic and pepper). Mix all pork together until the meat becomes glutinous. Finally mix everything together.
5.	stuffing	Stuff mixture into 32 mm hog casings and form 18 - 20 cm links (7 - 8"). Prick any visible air pockets with a needle. Keep the total number of links an even number as it will be easier to divide them later into pairs.
6.	drying	Leave it hanging on smoke sticks at room temperature, 64 - 68º F, (18 - 20º C) for 2 - 3 hours.
7.	smoking	Sausage is hot smoked in a few distinct stages : 1. at about 122º F (50º C) for 80 - 90 min . You can keep on increasing gradually smoking temperature up to 176º F (80º C). 2. at 176 - 194º F (80 - 90º C) for 25 min until the internal temperature of 154 - 158º F (68 - 70º C) is reached. The color of the sausage should be brown. Though the above listed cooking temperatures might seem to be high, the sausage will stay at them at few minutes only and inside should reach only 154 - 158º F. Rotate smoke sticks during smoking.
8.	cooking	Cooked, rather baked, during smoking - see above.
9.	cooling	The sausage is air-cooled at room temperature to 86º F (30º C) inside temperature. It basically hangs on smoke sticks in the room until the next day allowing more moisture to escape from inside.
	second smoking	It is smoked again the next day with warm smoke, 86º F (30 º C) from 3 - 12 hours until it reaches the dark brown color.
10.	storing	Store at 60º - 65º F (16º - 18º C), which is a room temperature, in a dark place for 6 - 8 days (until the sausage achieves 60 - 65 % of its initial weight.) It is ready!
	notes	Amount of garlic may be increased to 7.5 g (3 cloves). This is the original textbook recipe as taught at Polish Colleges on Meat Technology and Sausage Making. The sausage is ready to be eaten when # 2 smoking step is completed.(baked to 154º - 158º F). It is not a dry sausage yet, just a cooked one and it has to be refrigerated. Once when all steps are fully completed it becomes a dry sausage and it does not have to be refrigerated.