Links to the Spicy Side
BUTLER TWP — “There are no two finer words than 'encased meats,' my friend.”
So says chef, travel and food writer and television star Anthony Bourdain, who is known for his delight in sausages, salamis and other groundmeats held together by casing.
For encased meat lovers wanting to make their own delicacies, Rodney Schaffer with Con Yeager Spice in Zelienople is the man to meet.
Schaffer teaches two classes on sausage making at the Butler County Vocational-Technical School's Culinary Arts Department — a beginners' class for those who want to make fresh sausage, smoked sausage, bologna and meat snack sticks, and an advanced class for cooks wanting to make dry cured treats like sopressata, salami and pepperoni.
Schaffer's beginner's class convened Tuesday and Wednesday with nearly 20 people in attendance, some of whom traveled over the hill from Center Township, while others took vacation time to travel from other states to learn the secrets of sausage.
Ty St. John drove five hours from a town about 30 minutes outside of Syracuse, N.Y., to take the sausage class.
“I have a monument company and a butcher shop where we process about 400 deer each year. I've started smoking meats and I want to bring the whole processing operation in-house, and I thought this would be a good way to do that,” St. John said.
His real passion seems to be producing a distinct hot dog for the Syracuse area. He was interested in everything from the amount of fat Schaffer recommends to developing his own spice profile for the dogs.
“I've known Con Yeager and used their products, but I came for this class because no one offers it anyplace else,” St. John said.
Schaffer started work as a carpenter who built the Con Yeager headquarters in Zelienople in 1983 and was then offered a job by the Yeager family. Over the past 30 years, he has learned about food and food safety and has taught food preparation classes at Penn State University and other locations, while continuing to work for the spice company.He said he began the sausage class in 2000, gearing it to hunters who wanted to do something more with their venison than have it made into steaks, roasts and ground meat. Over the years, however, the discussion has branched out from the obvious — beef and pork — to more exotic sausage meats, such as rabbit, duck and other fowl, but Tuesday he started the class by covering some basic food handling, specifically venison.“To make good sausage you have to have good raw materials and that means cooling the deer carcass as quickly as possible,” Schaffer said, adding that means gutting and cleaning the carcass and getting the meat quickly chilled down to 41 degrees.“If you wait, you end up with half-spoiled meat that tastes bad. That is the reason your wife and your kids don't like venison,” he said.Contrary to deer-hunting tradition, he recommends washing down the meat with water.“When butchers process beef and pork and other meats, they wash the carcasses down with water, in some cases hot water before cooling it,” Schaffer said, adding that “all the water is going to do is improve the product.”Schaffer also covered what parts of the deer not to use for sausage, especially the rib meat which can be contaminated during the gutting process, resulting in high bacteria counts.He also told the class not to use deer fat for anything, as “the tallow is rancid in two days.”And you have to get rid of the sinew around the muscles. To leave the sinew attached to the meat, “results in hard things.“If my wife encounters a hard thing in her meal, the food is in the trash and the meal is over,” Schaffer said. “You must eliminate the 'yuck factor,' in your sausage, including a bone chip or anything that will make a hard thing.”
Schaffer finishes the classroom portion of Tuesday night describing the grinding process, seasonings, sweeteners, salt, water, types of casings, stuffing equipment and storage methods.Then it's off to the vo-tech kitchen, where Schaffer has the class put principle into practice, picking Joe Graf, an Allegheny-ClarionValley school teacher and hunter to help with the grinding of pork for the two sausages made Tuesday night — an Italian link sausage and a cheddar garlic bratwurst.Schaffer said he only likes to grind meat once, followed by a finish grind before mixing in seasoning and a little bit of water.He then loaded a stuffing machine with the Italian sausage and fixed an edible collagen casing, made of beef hide, onto the spout, taking a short time to show students how stuffing was done, as well has how to twist the links. After that, it was the students' turn.Josh Zimmerman, a vo-tech graduate who works in a Cranberry Township restaurant, found twisting of the links a little harder than it looks. His links kept untwisting.Then the class moved to the bratwurst links made with pork intestines with Joe Cammisa of Center Township trying his hand at the larger link process.“I came to class because I want to learn how to make sausage and hot dogs, and take the advance class because salami and sopressata — that's my heritage, and I want to be able to teach my grandchildren,” Cammisa said.Matt Durst of Cranberry Township and his father, Ron Durst of Harmony, came to the sausage class as part of Ron's Christmas present.
“I do hunt and I want to learn more about how to process my deer to make sure I'm getting the best product I can,” Ron Durst said.The Dursts practiced their link technique on the Italian sausage, until the meat was all encased.All the meat was put into plastic bags and divided up among the classmates — a little treat for home.Donna and Blaine Schuby of Cumberland, Md., took vacation time to come to Butler for Schaffer's class.“We have a meat-processing party at our house every year, and we thought this would be a great addition to the party,” Donna said, adding that friends also bring meat for smoking to their house.Schaffer discusses smoking sausage and making bologna, jerky and snack sticks on the second night of class.For Nick Santinoceto of Clearfield County, the sausage class is about regaining family knowledge.“My grandparents had a grocery that they opened in 1931, and we finally made my grandmother retire and close the store in 1984, so while I have the recipes and do make sausage, I wanted to make sure I know what I need to to make the best sausage I can,” he said, adding that in the first half of Tuesday's class, he did learn things about food safety he didn't know. “This is a big help.”
To learn more about Rodney Schaffer's sausage making classes, go to the Con Yeager Spice Co., Web site at www.conyeagerspice.com and look for the “Hunters” heading on the right side of the page.
