Polish Kielbasa

Keep all of the metal gears and dies from your favorite sausage grinder and stuffer in the freezer for at least an hour before you begin stuffing. Also, place all your meats into the freezer for about 30 minutes prior to stuffing.  This will make the grinding process much more efficient for you and the grinder.

Prepare your natural casings at least one hour prior to stuffing by giving them a good rinse under tap water to remove all the excessive salts and brines. Then fill a small bowl with warm water, (about 100F, or roughly a bathwater temp.) and soak them for an hour - up to overnight. Keep them soaking until ready to use.

Twice-Grind

1. Place all metal parts of your grinder and stuffer in the freezer for at least one hour.
2. At the same time, rinse your casings of all excess brine and salts. Soak in warm bathwater temperature water for at least one hour until you're ready to stuff.
3. Trim all of the meats using the chef tips as a guide for what and how much to trim.
4. Cut each cut of trimmed meat into 2 inch cubes (1 inch if only doing a single grind and stuff) into an extra large bowl.
5. Evenly distribute the seasoning and water over the meat, and toss to coat evenly.
6. If the bowl does not fit in a freezer, you can transport the meat into large freezer bags and set in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
7. Retrieve the grinder parts from the freezer and assemble your grinder with the largest course grind die you have if doing 2 grinds. This might often be a die with only three large openings instead of a die full of small holes.  If you're only doing a single grind, use the die you prefer most for the texture of sausage you like best.
8. If you're doing two grinds, set an extra large bowl next to the grinder to catch the meat as it grinds. Then return the meat to the fridge or freezer to keep it as cold as possible.
9. Take the time now to clean the dies and any parts you no longer need by preparing a bath of soapy water. It is not recommended to use your dishwasher as it can deteriorate your dies and cutters over time.
10. Assemble your grinder or stuff with the proper stuffing attachments and whichever die you prefer as your finished sausage texture.
11. Transfer your presoaked casings onto the stuffing tube leaving the end untied for the moment.
12. Start the stuffing process until you see the meat just starting to reach the opening of the tube. Stop the process, and tie off the end of the casings.
    (NOTE: This first step will help push out any air that is in the tube so the casings won't balloon before the meat fills it in.  Alternatively, you can use a cake-tester or toothpick to poke a small air hole, but careful not to let it rupture when the sausage is pushed through.)
13. Continue stuffing the sausage, applying light resistance on the casings to allow the sausage to pack to a gentle tightness. It will naturally want to form it's own coil.  Continue to stuff until you have a long rope, roughly 2 feet in length, or simply judge it by the number of loops you have. 4 coil loops can make about 1.5 lbs of sausage.
14. Once you have a desired length of sausage, stretch out about 3 inches of extras casing and cut it. The extra casing will allow you tie easily tie a knot to close the link. Set the finished links on a drying rack to keep from too much moisture.
15. Retie the continue stuffing more links until all meat is stuffed.
16. If you wish, you can make a small string of links after the stuff is complete by gently pinching where you want each twist, and then spin the sausage until the casing forms the tight separation.
17. Let the sausage air dry for about 30 minutes, then Vacuum seal and freeze your sausage, or smoke it and freeze it, or you can smoke it and freeze it as well.