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Since picking up the bicarbonate tip from NCPaul I have introduced this to two recipes one containing yogurt the other wine. Along with milk powder this made a nice solid bind with a nice meaty texture.

Now my latest tried recipe was leek an mustard which never mentioned a thing about bicarbonate and sure enough I end up with a crumbling sausage. Obvious really considering a full jar of whole grain mustard and 30% leek, that's got to be a lot of acid. The mix however looked and felt to have a good bind, but the liquid just poured out of them in the oven leaving them dry and crumb like.

So this gets me thinking that why don't I just put 0.6% bicarbonate and 3% milk powder in all my recipes which are rusk free as I want that snappy meaty solid sausage. Or at least the ones that don't get that snap.

I think that mustard has a lot of acid in it. The acid is used to inhibit the enzyme that produces "hot" compounds in the mustard. When you neutralize the acid(s), you will be making salts. At some level, you may not care for the taste these salts give. Two other possibilities come to me in this case, first a blend of prepared mustard with baking soda augmented with some dried mustard powder and / or seed could work. Another option would be to go with all mustard powder and seed, in which case I would lower the amount to control the heat. Let us know how you do with whatever way you choose as it may help others.

If the bicarb doesn't work r tastes funny, I'd try Colmans powder and add mustard seeds (soaked for a couple of days to soften them).

I've not done it myself, but fwiw, that's what I'd try.

Phil

UPDATE

0.6% Bicarb and 3% milk powder worked wonders for my Diot recipe with white wine. Very nice solid juicy bind with no hint of any adverse flavour, quite the opposite. 3% milk powder also worked very well in my breakfast sausage where I would say it has improved my well tried and tested recipe. These are both rusk free all meat.

The difference is very evident during the mix, the bind is very quickly established and eventually so claggy its trying to pull my gloves off.

The bind has been the biggest disappointment in some of my recipes, even when the bind feels and looks good. Not understanding any acid in the recipe is going to disturb a good bind. With this utter gem of sausage info I feel a mayor step has been taken in producing what I am wanting. Whoo hooo

RESULT!

Don't ya just luv it when it all comes together.