www.sausagemaking.org

Hi All, (Wheels im particularly looking at you here)

Im looking for help or input. Here in Ireland the "Holy Grail" of pork sausage is the "SuperquinN Sausage" This sausage is legend and known up and down the country. It was launched by a man called Fregal Quinn who set up a supermarket chain and launched this sausage they manufactured in house. the chain was since bough by a company called Supervalue but is now sold nationwide under the Superquinn brand.

I make sausage but i cant make sausage anywhere near this calliber and looking for help and direction. I have a bowl chopper and all the other toys, looking to repliucate the texture for a start and i reckon i could get close to the flavour if i worked on it,

If your unfamiliar with it, its a 16/1lb breakfast sausage served in a sheep casing with a firm smooth texture juicy, the following is the ingredients....

Ingredients
Irish Pork (80%), Pork Fat, Water, Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin (B3), Thiamin (B1)], Salt, Stabilisers (Triphosphates, Diphosphates), Spices, Preservative (Sodium Sulphite), Flavour Enhancer (Monosodium Glutamate), Antioxidant (Sodium Ascorbate), Spice Extracts, Maltodextrin, Natural Sheep Casing



Any help would be appreciated

Here's the nutritional breakdown it's based on 100gm sausage so that what I'll base my figures on also.



Your ingredients when cleared out are:

Ingredients
Pork (80%), Pork Fat, Water, Wheat Flour, Salt, phosphates, Spices, Sodium Sulphite, Monosodium Glutamate, Sodium Ascorbate, Spice Extracts, Maltodextrin

It's in Natural Sheep Casing

Pork fat has to be listed separately when VL of the meat is less than 80% i.e. visible fat in the meat exceeds 20%. That's just visible fat. There will be fat hidden in the meat.

We are told that it's 80% pork plus some pork fat. In 100gm sausage the 80% pork is 80gm. If it's 20% visible fat that's 16gm fat. To this we add the hidden fat The nutritional info tells use there's 28gm fat in 100gm sausage. My QUID declaration calculator (QUID is the EU standard on which the description is based) tells me that if I use 70% VL pork I will need 89gm to give an 80% pork declaration. I'm guessing that the fat is therefore around 8 or 9gm. It must be more than 6gm otherwise the whole lot doesn't fit with the figures we know for sure like the salt.

We know that the salt tests at 1.9gm. That's the added salt plus the salt in the meat. We know from some tests NCPaul did that the natural salt in the meat will be around 0.17%. That's small enough to be negligible but we'll reduce the salt to 1.8gm to allow for any salt in other things like the additives.

We know that the amounts of water and flour must be more than the salt at 1.9gm per 100gm and less than the fat at 8 - 9gm. Each of the other things must be less than the 1.9gm salt.

Ascorbate cannot exceed 500mg/kg IIRC that's 0.05gm.

Phosphate is used at 0.8% - 8gm per kg according to the stuff for sale at the site shop that's 0.8gm

Sulphite preservative is used at 0.8gm per kg = 0.08gm

Monosodium Glutamate must be between 0.08 and 0.05 say 0.06gm

Spice extracts must be less than 0.05 as must Maltodextrin let's say 0.07gm between them.

This leaves the spices, flour and water. Each must be more than the one below it and less than the one above.



We know the spices must be less than 0.8gm and more than 0.08gm. I don't know whether it's spicy or not but around 0.5gm – 0.7gm seems about right. I'm going with the lower amount.

We're left with about 9gm for flour and water. I'm surprised it uses just flour and not rusk. That's unusual. I think you'll have to play with them to get the texture you want. The nutritional details show 2.9gm carbs but 2.3gm of this being sugars. This is confusing as flour is 78% carbs but only 1.5% sugars according to my wholesalers details on the flour I buy. This leads me to believe that the majority of the missing 9gms or so is made up of the water but in that case where the dickens are the carbs and sugar from? The spices and maltodextrin aren't high enough to give those levels.

I'm going with 2 gm of flour and the rest water for no other reason than it pleases me and is roughly a teaspoon. It can't be more than just over 4gm at a maximum otherwise the water wouldn't be more than it.

The 100gm sausage now looks like this:



For a 1kg mix it's:



I was being pedantic showing 65.9 water. You just use 66gm obviously.

You're on your own with the spices I'm afraid. Commercial mixes often major on white pepper though. It's a pity Johnfb doesn't seem to be around. He was great at working out the spices in Irish sausages.

I hope this is of some help. You could probably drive a bus through my assumptions and someone with more knowledge of meat science, or science in general, could probably tell a lot more from the nutritional breakdown. It does, however, give you a starting point. Hopefully, others will add to it.

Phil

Hi wheels,

Thanks for that. That certainly is wayyyy more input than I could have expected. I'm going to give this a while next weekend. I bought MSG yesterday on Amazon just got to chase up the rest of the ingredients.

Any suggestions on using a bowl chopper to get the firm binded meat?

If you PM me your address I'd be happy to post you a pack of these wonderful sausages

Ok so here is my Breakfast this morning using SuperQuinn Sausages. i sat and tried to make out the flavour profile. I really cant get anything unusual or anything that stands out. It really seems just like salt and pepper but a big Umami / Meaty flavour which i suspect is from the MSG and Spice extract. Hopefully from the pics you can get an idea of the consistancy. Its firm, smooth with no texture as such. Its been emulsified. they cook in the pan and the grill very well and dont split again supports them being an emulsification with low water content.

Yes, it looks very finely ground. That will add to the firm texture.

Phil

OK!! so im having trouble locating a couple of the ingredients.....

Ascorbate- sourced

Phosphate - sourced (site shop)

Sulphite preservative - Need more info

Monosodium Glutamate - sourced

Spice extracts - Need more info

Maltodextrin - sourced

Sheep Casing - - sourced (Site Shop)

https://sausagemaking.org/collections/e ... s/supapres It's similar to Campden tablets.



As to what the spice extracts are is anyone's guess.

ok ordered the supapres and a couple other bit from the site shop, thanks for that. Ive also looked up some spice extracts. Ive found a company in the UK that makes them https://holylama.co.uk/ ive a suspicion their is either a touch of Cardamon or maybe corriander seed in the blend. Anyway ill see what i can put together

I'd just use spices and save the expense. It's more likely to be coriander than cardamon.

I like wheels' suggestion of white pepper as well. How would you describe the taste of these sausages?

wheels wrote:I'd just use spices and save the expense. It's more likely to be coriander than cardamon.

I was able to get a kit of 10 samples for £2.60 so i can have them there to experiment.

NCPaul wrote:I like wheels' suggestion of white pepper as well. How would you describe the taste of these sausages?

Its a very simple taste really. I will try explain in detail.....

Flavour profile is simple, salt in good measure but not salty (for example i dont think bacon trimmings are used hense no E numbers present would support that theory), pepper is there but not dominant quite low key in fact. The big flavour i think is from the MSG and Umami. Its a well rounded meat flavour without any major peaks or troughs in the flavour profile. No sign of a sweet taste at all i would say. in my mind there is a subtle ingredient that lingers and ive narrowed it down to Cardamom or Corriander Seed (most likely Corriander Seed as Wheels suggested) i suppose one of the biggest characteristics of this sausage is how juicy it is when eating it and this i believe is what holds the flavours and why its such a strong taste, little to no expansion of the sausage and rarely splits the case, as its sheep casing you get an excellent caramelization that adds another flavor dimension ahead of other sausages that are mass produced in collagen casings.

Sorry for the overly elaborate description but its hard to explain a flvour in text

The phosphate will contribute to juiciness along with the fine grind. The maltodextrin will help the colour. Even though it may not taste salty it has a quite high 1.9% salt in it.

Phil

Thanks Phil,

Ive ordered all the bits i think i need and wont have all the ingredients here for a few days yet. Id say it will be next weekend before i get a chance to try this recipe.

Ill update once i give it a try

So FINALLY i got around to making this sausage, and its excellent! the texture is exactly what i was after and its essential to have a bowl chopper to get the consistency. i ended up making 12Kg in total and ended up with 32 portions of 6 sausages, 7 packs of sausage meat for the freezer and another 1 Kg for the stuffing for Christmas coming. Wheels many thanks for your help on this, id never been able to replicate it without your help.