Texas Hot Links. A delicious spicy sausage that finds it’s origins out of Pittsburg, TX. This sausage (AKA Hot Guts) can be made with beef, pork, or a combination of both. From what I can gather there is no real standard when it comes to Texas Hot Guts as every butcher seems to make theirs slightly different.
Originally this sausage was baked/broiled so that the outer skin would receive a charred almost burnt looking appearance but today you can find these hot links cooked any number of ways. Grilling, broiling, baking, or smoking. I wouldn’t poach this sausage as it just wouldn’t give you that “Texas Hot Guts” texture that we want.
I like to cold smoking these hot links for several hours before cooking to really get that beautiful smoke penetration. This step is totally optional but really elevates this sausage (IMHO)
Follow basic cold smoked sausage preparation practices when making this sausage.
- Clean and Sanitize all of your equipment.
- Keep your meat and grinder parts super cold (below 34F)
- Any liquid that is added to the mince needs to be ice cold
- Mix your very chilled meat and seasonings till the mince becomes very tacky
- Stuff the mince into sausage casings and prick out any air pockets
- Refrigerate your sausage overnight to allow the cure to work
- The next day follow this smoking schedule (Optional)
-Bring your sausage to room temperature to dry out
-Once dry begin to cold smoke for 6 hours
– After the cold smoke increase to 135F for 1 hour
-Increase to 155F for 1.5 hours
-Increase to 175F till the internal temp reaches 145F
Here are a few things you might find useful when making sausage
- High Quality Natural Casings (AA Grade)
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Chef Knife – KOTAI
- Boning Knife
- Sausage Pricker
- Iwatani Professional Chef Torch
- Insta Cure #1
- Non Fat Dry Milk Powder
- Meat Grinders
- Meat Mixers
- Sausage Stuffers
- Smokers
- Bella’s Cold Smoke Generator
Enjoy the video and the recipe. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. If you make this at home I’d love to hear about how it came out!!
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Texas Hot Links
Ingredients
- 1430 g fatty pork shoulder
- 840 g beef chuck
- 38 g kosher salt
- 5.7 g insta cure #1
- 17 g black pepper
- 15 g garlic powder
- 11 g onion powder
- 8 g red pepper flakes
- 10 g cayenne or more if you like it super spicy
- 13 g paprika
- 4 g mustard seeds
- 2 g dried thyme
- 68 g non fat powdered milk
- 1 cup ice cold beer
- hog casings
Instructions
- Clean your meat of any silver skin, sinew, arteries and cut into small strips or cubes. Add all of the seasonings (except the Non-Fat Powder Milk) and place the seasoned meat and fat in the freezer for an hour or until the temp reaches 32f – 34F.
- clean and rehydrate your hog casings
- Grind your very chilled meat and fat on a course plate (10mm) then regrind on a medium plate (4.5mm). Make sure everything is very chilled while grinding.
- Add the ice cold beer and the non-fat dry powder milk to your mince meat and mix till it becomes very tacky. If you grab a small handful it will stick to your hand if you hold your hand upside down.
- Stuff your mince meat into the casings, link, and prick out any air pockets. Let your sausages rest in the refrigerator overnight
Smoking Schedule
- Cold smoke for 6 hours
- Next set the temp to 135F for 1 hour, then raise to 155F for 1.5 hours, and finally raise the temp to 175F till the internal temp reaches 145F.
- Once finished cool your sausages by dunking them in ice cold water. Remove from the water and let them bloom at room temperature for several hours. Refrigerate and enjoy!
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LOL. Thanks for catching that. I just fixed it!! It should be 2270.
Was this question regarding the pork to beef ratio??
No. It was a total serving size issue. The ratio of beef/pork/and fat are correct. It should be 70% meat and 30% fat. However you want to mix and match is up to you.
In step 1 it says to add all seasonings except NFDMP. However, none of the remaining steps say to add the NFDMP. At what point does this get added to the grind? Am I missing something?
I fixed it to make it easier to understand. Just add all the seasonings to the meat, chill it, then grind it..
Awesome. Thanks!
Can I make a slurry with Budlight beer , spices and nfdm ?
Yes
Sounds fantastic. I noticed in the video you showed two bottles of beer but the recipe only called for one cup of beer. What happened to the other beer? Hmmmm
😂😂😂🎉🥳🥳
Tried this recipe utilizing a total of 5lbs of meat….Fantastic! Highly recommended….another great job, Eric!
So if you want to freeze thee for later, do you:
1 – finish cooking them after the cold smoke and reheat/grill when you want to eat them, or:
2- Freeze them after cold smoking and cook them when you want to eat them?
You can do either way. Most people will cook all the way through then freeze them nut either way is totally acceptable.
Made up about a 7.5lbs batch of this that is cold smoking now. I went with 2/3 pork shoulder and 1/3 beef chuck by weight. Followed your recipe pretty closely with a little less NFPM and a little heavier on cayenne. When I fried a sample, it had a very beer forward taste so I’m hoping that tamed out a bit in the overnight rest and through the cooking process. The sample was still good and I’m excited for the end product. Thanks for your easy to follow and up/downscale recipes and thanks for including gram weights for everything. Makes it easy to make percent by weight adjustments when iterating.
Can i use insta cure #2?
Not if you plan on following this recipe. You can use cure #2 if you plan on turning these into salami.
Eric,
I made this sausage this weekend, I’d been looking for a good Texas Sausage recipe. It impressed two of my most critical critics, my wife and Bill. Bill is a former 5 star chef that has redirected his talents to creating a 501 c3 hunger relief agency I volunteer my time with, I from time to time take in food for him to sample and provide feedback. Well today he discussed how he would make sausage, which made me start to think he did not like it, but to my surprise he said it was some of the best sausage he had eaten and definitely the best I’d brought him to test. I tweaked the recipe a bit, used 50% of the recommended cayenne pepper and found some beef tenderloin tails in the freezer so used those and added 1 lb. of back fat to compensate for the lean beef. I had to do a little bit of improvising on the cooking, but cold smoked for 5.5 hours then started the smoker at 150 F. it’s lowest temp. for 2.5 hours. then up the temp to 175 to finish.
That’s great!! This is one of my personal favorites!
Can I do it with out power milk
Sure
Hi Eric – another great recipe I’m looking to experiment with. Quick question – what effect will substituting the beer with water have? Also, i’m looking to grill/broil rather than smoke, so I’m guessing I don’t have to add the instacure. Since instacure is about 94% NACL, would you suggest increasing the kosher salt percentage a little bit to compensate for the NaCl from the instacure?
And finally… can i replace the NFPM with potato starch?
It will slightly change the flavor, but they will still be delicious. You can omit the cure and either add a bit more salt or not. That small amount is not that big of a deal. Yes. Potatoe starch is a fine substitute. Use the same amount that the recipe calls for.
I made these a year ago, but didn’t do the cold smoke back then. I am planning to make them again next week, with a cold smoking session and packaging/freezing them afterwards.
What wood would you recommend for the cold smoke?
I like to use pecan and hickory
Can you use mustard seed instead of or along with the mustard powder to get that little pop of flavor in the sausage? How much would you recommend to keep from having too much mustard?
When I make it I use mustard seeds. I find it to be a better surprise when eating it. BTW, I just changed the recipe to reflect that!
Awesome! Thank you
Hi Eric,
Made many of your recipes, always awesome. You made a video with Chuds BBQ and he put out a video on how to make Pfefferbeisser. A raw sausage that only uses pink #1 and cold smoking. Recipe also on Wurst Circle. I also found this great German site, raeucherwiki.de
Lots of cool European meats. Nobody in America seems to be into raw sausage, but I’ve made it and is the bomb. This would be a great topic for you to talk about.
Sweet suggestion. Thanks for that. I’ll look into it and perhaps use it on Celebrate Sausage Season 4!!
Would there be a big difference if I were to grind just the meat (no seasoning) and then add the seasoning to the ground meat and then paddled to incorporate / form the bind?
Seems like this would lead to all of the seasoning ending up in the mix, and not stuck inside the grinder
I usually add the spices after I grind but either way works well. Sounds like another experiment is in order 😉