them after draining them.
As you can see in the chart above, there’s a pretty clear
advantage to letting your meat rest before grinding and
forming sausages. A wait of 2 hours saves you half of the
juices that would otherwise be lost, while 4 hours saves you
a full 75 percent. Not bad. Beyond 8 hours or so, the
changes become incremental, shaving off a half percentage
point or two before finally maxing out at around a 3.6-
percent moisture-loss level after a few days of salting.
Fear the Smear
A meat grinder is the best way to grind meat for sausage
(though a food processor will do just fine), but it’s not as
simple as throwing chunks of salted meat into the hopper.
Before you start grinding, you must remember the most
important rule in sausage making: everything must stay cold
at all times. Why, you ask? Let me warn you that the picture
you are about to see is not pretty. I’m almost afraid to show
it to you.