Homemade Kielbasa

Steps

1. Mix the spices together.
2. Grind the meat using a heavy-duty meat grinder. Use very cold or almost frozen meat to ensure a clean grind.
3. Bind the ground meat by pouring water into the spice bowl (to catch excess spices) and then adding it to the ground meat, mixing by hand and adjusting as needed until the mixture clumps together and sticks to your hand.
4. Stuff the sausage using an ethnic manual sausage stuffer. Fill the container completely, slamming down the meat to avoid air pockets. Crank the top of the stuffer until the sausage just appears at the end of the tube.
5. Slide a casing over the extruded sausage and crank the stuffer to guide it out in a circle, creating one link.
6. Repeat the stuffing process until all the meat is used up.
7. Use a spiky stabber tool to remove any air pockets from within the stuffed sausages.
8. Twist or pinch each casing together to create links and establish a natural hanging point for drying.
9. Place the sausage on rods in the smoker. Use a fan to move air over them to help dry the casings, which should take about three hours.
10. Smoke the kielbasa until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
11. After smoking, cool the sausages by pouring water over them or placing them in a bowl of water. This cools the outside and keeps the casing plump while bringing out the color.
12. Store the finished kielbasa in a walk-in cooler before packaging.