THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOUS VIDE SAUSAGE

Einführung

Sous Vide Sausage Basics

There are a number of factors that make cooking sausage more forgiving than cooking straight-up meat. First off, the ratio of fat to lean meat in a sausage is generally high — around 25 to 30%. Aside from adding flavor (most of the identifying flavorful compounds in a given meat are found in its fat), fat serves both to help lubricate meat as it cooks, and acts as an insulator, allowing it to cook more gently.

Salt also helps sausages stay moist. When meat is salted, some of its protein structure breaks down. As it is subsequently kneaded and forced into casings, those proteins cross-link, creating an interlocking network that helps the sausage retain juices and gives it a snappy texture.

All of that means that even if you overcook a sausage or let it dry out, it’ll still be juicier and moister than, say, a chicken breast or a pork chop. But that’s no excuse to be lazy about it. Temperature control is the real key to the juiciest sausages.

Traditional sous vide sausage consists of an easy, two-phase cooking process:

1. Versiegeln the sausages in a plastic bag using either a vacuum sealer or the water displacement method and Kochen in einem temperaturgeregelten Wasserbad auf die gewünschte Endtemperatur bringen.
   1. The temperature of the sous vide bath during the initial cooking phase is what determines the final texture of the sausage.
2. Searing the sausages to develop color, flavor, and textural contrast.

If you’d prefer to introduce new sous vide techniques into your arsenal, you can also use the Anova Precision™ Oven to prepare sous vide sausages. Because of the way we’ve designed the temperature sensors and humidity control, the oven will precisely maintain the cooking temperature you set.

You can choose to bag and cook your sausages in the Precision™ Oven just as you would with an Precision® Cooker, or you can use the oven’s food probe to tell you exactly when the core of your sausages has hit your desired temp.

Just like traditional sous vide, using Sous Vide Mode in the Anova Precision™ Oven typically is a two-stage cooking process: First, bring the sausages to your desired internal temperature, then sear them on the stove or grill to create a flavorful crust.

You can use this method to cook both raw and precooked sausages. However, keep in mind that heat-and-eat precooked sausages may have already been cooked to a temperature higher than you are aiming for with sous vide, which makes it difficult to control moisture loss.

Sausages are extremely soft when raw. Packing them into vacuum bags and using a sealer ends up giving them an unnatural, pinched appearance. To combat this you have three options:

1. Manually hitting the “seal” button on the vacuum sealer before it has had an opportunity to start compressing the sausages.
2. Using the water displacement method and a zipper-lock bag in lieu of a countertop vacuum sealer.
   • Place your sausages inside a heavy duty zipper-lock bag, seal the bag almost all the way up, then gently lower it into a large pot of water, sealing off the bag just before the top is fully submerged.
3. Cooking the sausages in the Anova Precision™ Oven using sous vide mode.

Temperatur und Timing

The doneness of a sausage is determined by the maximum internal temperature it reaches during cooking. For instance, so long as a sausage does not rise above 140°F (60ºC), it will never cook beyond medium (a rather low temperature for a sausage).

With traditional cooking methods, there is a very short window of time during which your meat is perfectly cooked. A minute too long will mean overcooked meat. With sous vide cooking, on the other hand, that window of time is stretched into hours, which means your sausage will be hot and ready to go whenever you’re ready to sear and serve it.

To find the ideal final temperature for sausages, we cooked sausages using a Precision® Cooker to hold a water bath at temperatures ranging from 130°F (54ºC) up to 185°F (85ºC). The sweet spot is right in the middle.

140°F (60°C), 45 minutes to 4 hours

Extra juicy compared to traditional cooking, but with a softness that some might find bordering on too soft.

150°F (66°C), 45 minutes to 4 hours

Fully firm and extra juicy, with a very smooth texture throughout.

160°F (71°C), 45 minutes to 4 hours

Nearly traditional texture — springy and juicy, quite firm, but starting to show a difference in texture between fat and lean areas, with the latter starting to turn a little loose and crumbly.

Traditionelles Sous Vide

Sous Vide Express in the Anova Precision™ Oven

How to Cook Sous Vide Sausage, Step by Step

Schritt 1

Attach an Anova Precision® Cooker to a water bath and heat to your desired final doneness temperature or preheat the Precision™ Oven to your desired temperature.

Schritt 2

If cooking using traditional sous vide methods, place the sausages inside a vacuum-seal or zipper-lock bag in a single layer. If desired, add a few tablespoons of beer to each bag along with 2 tsp of salt.

Seal the bags, making sure to stop the vacuum sealer and seal the bags immediately after the air has been removed — do not let the sausages get squeezed. Alternatively, use the water displacement method: seal your zipper-lock bag almost all the way up, then gently lower it into a large pot of water, sealing off the bag just before the top is fully submerged. Add the sausages to the water bath.

Schritt 3

If cooking in the Anova Precision™ Oven, place the sausages on a sheet pan. Insert the probe if cooking using Sous Vide Express. Place in the oven.

Schritt 4

Cook the sausages according to the time and temp for your desired level of doneness.

Fertigstellung der Schritte

Remove the sausages from the bag or oven and discard the juices. Pat dry.

Schritt 1

To finish on the stovetop, heat 1 tbsp (15 ml) of oil or butter over medium heat in a skillet until shimmering. Add sausages and cook, turning occasionally, until well-browned on all sides, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately.

Schritt 1

Light one half chimney full of charcoal (about 2 1/2 quarts (2L) of coals) When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and arrange the coals on one side of the charcoal grate. Set cooking grate in place, cover grill, and allow to preheat for 5 minutes.

Alternatively, set half the burners on a gas grill to the medium heat setting, cover, and preheat for 10 minutes.

Scrape the grill grates clean with a grill scraper, then oil the grates by holding an oil-dipped kitchen towel or paper towels in a set of tongs and rubbing them over the grates 5 to 6 times.

Schritt 2

Place the sausages directly over the hot side of the grill and cook until well browned on all sides, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately.

A Closer Look at Seasoning Sous Vide Sausages

The idea of simmering a bratwurst in beer is an appealing one, but how well does it really work? We tried adding various beers to the sealed bags as we cooked bratwurst sausages (we used a hop-heavy IPA, a light lager, and a fresh and fruity saison to cover all of our bases), expecting the sausages to come out with extra flavor.

Much to our surprise, we found the exact opposite to be the case: The sausages actually lost flavor as they cooked in beer. The problem is that even though beer has a few flavorful compounds, it’s mostly water, which means that it ends up drawing salt and other compounds out of the sausages as they cook. Try to cook a sausage in beer, and instead of adding beer flavor to the sausage, you really wind up adding sausage flavor to the beer.

The solution? Heavily season the beer with salt as you add it to the bag. Adding salt to the beer helps to balance out the osmotic pressure on the sausages’ cell walls, keeping what’s inside them inside while also adding a small amount of beer flavor to the outer layers.

A Closer Look at Finishing Sous Vide Sausages

As with other meats, cooking sausages sous vide doesn’t produce any color or texture on the exterior. For that, you need to finish them on the grill or in a skillet. This is very simple to do: Take the sausages out of their bags, dry them very thoroughly with paper towels (surface moisture is the number one enemy of good browning), then cook them over moderate heat in a skillet with a little butter or over a preheated grill. Where you finish them is a matter of personal taste.