Sausage Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Sausage | Price Points | Epicurious

I'm Eli Cairo and I'm a sausage expert [Music] bratwurst pretty much the quintessential grill in summertime sausage it's also kind of the base for all sausage makers if you're gonna call yourself a sausage maker you better make yourself a damn fine bratwurst usually if you're buying an unposted sausage right away you can assume that that one's gonna be a little bit cheaper because in the cooking process you'll actually lose a little bit of fat and grease so everything you lose from a sausage maker a butcher counter you do charge at the end of the day so this one sometimes tends to be cheaper but you'll lose that weight in your pan or on your grill when you're cooking it at home so there's multiple techniques to making a bratwurst it's kind of hard to tell right now what the technique was used except in the raw one this one definitely looks a little bit more coarser you can see when you're seeing the variation between the Leamy which is the red and the fat the white that this one's probably done through a grinder and done relatively coarse and this one here even is tricky until we cook it up it does look like it's multiplied when I say emulsification in sausage making it's what we refer to as pretty much making a giant meat mayonnaise we take lean meat then we put it inside of a big chopper we refer to it as a bowl chopper and you run it around and you make a myosin binds so it turns into this big continual protein bite just like when you're making mayonnaise with your egg yolks you whip those up and then you slowly but surely start folding fat back into it when the fat breaks into smaller particles it gets encased by the lean meat that somebody can poach it it stays on the side of the sausage and it's all about your technique they both look like they're pretty quality made sausages I'm excited to get these hot and to taste them they both look pretty delicious when I look at a sausage and most sausage maker look at a sausage what you're looking for is to see if the casing shriveled right away what happens is when you have a really good emulsification the sausage should plump up in the casing when he feeds up of these ones here they kind of shrunk down on themselves meaning that the emulsification didn't have enough spring to it and what he also can do is to see if it's well made as you squeeze it and if the grease goes out but then it comes back in and doesn't necessarily run at it that means that that myosin actually bound that sausage so when you cooked it not all the grease came out of it it's still supported so that's a looks like it's a pretty well made sausage but I'll be able to taste it that's a very very delicious well-made bratwurst spices aren't too over the top this one also I would assume has milk powder in it because it's really really moist when you bite into it but not greasy it's really really well made I think that's a pretty high-quality sausage and sausage B here you can see is a little bit more coarser of a sausage as we say as you can see there's big flecks between the difference one thing of alarm that might see it's not perfectly made you can see it's kind of crumbling so that most of the fat in the middle of the sausage agree the emulsification was trying to escape to the outside and so the casing kind of came off let's say I can give it a taste I'll be able to tell much more that's actually a pretty darn good property to them I actually like the texture definitely coarser but that is a darn fine sausage and I kind of enjoy that it's definitely like the more classic sausage that you would buy your whole life in America throwing your grill and enjoy this is probably a little bit more of the sausage that you bought your German deli one thing that I would like to see is just to see if you could taste the difference in quality of casing let me take a bite out of it yeah yeah so that that casing was nice and tender the ones that are a little bit more harder and chewy you could run much faster through your sausage machine so if you wanted to pump out a couple hundred a minute you would purchase it more you know trechie a robust casing let's take a bite out of this and see it's definitely more broken and that's what I was saying in the emulsification so part of its chewy and then there's kind of like a greasy kind of mess in your mouth just means it's just a little bit more rustic in the sausage judging by the full emulsification on this one not getting much sinew in my teeth the real spices and the fact that it used milk powder I'm gonna assume that this one's a little bit more expensive this one the coarse grind the tougher casing a little bit of sinew I'm gonna assume that this one is the more expensive so sausage a is the more expensive sausage and if not right yeah both sausage a and B are awesome sausage this is definitely you know a little bit more technically sound and more overall enjoyable sausage but sausage B is you know a little bit more nostalgic the sausage that you enjoyed your entire life so they're both great sausages blood sausage I love blood sausage because it's the ultimate example of utilizing the entire animal of course we use all the steaks and the trim and the fat but to actually use the blood of the animal really goes to show that you're actually using every piece of that animal for something the blood itself has an amazing irony flavor that's the majority of the reason why we use it you know in South America they make blood sausages with pumpkins in um in Africa also with squashes you know the tricky thing about blood sausage is it's almost impossible to stabilize blood and so it has to be made right away it's an entire different art of sausage making and super challenging and really really delicious if you nail it this casing is kind of interesting to me because it's so black and so shiny to me yeah I think it must be cellulose or possibly a collagen casing on there it has definitely smoked paprika on it which is a already an expensive ingredient also might not only be the smoked paprika that's in that product this one could have been left out over okay and actually smoked really really delicious that thing smells absolutely amazing this one however yeah it's also still a little soft which could mean that it was fresh it isn't a natural casing which is a giant challenge to actually get stuffed into one thing you can tell from tasting the blood sausages you do fold a little bit of fat into it and if this is what I'm guessing it is which i think it's an empirical or sia from spain you'll be able to tell from the fat and again you're not seeing a lot of rice or barley or potatoes you're only seeing one little speck which it actually looks like it's pure fat so this one could be a lot of delicious pig blood this one yeah it's just yeah it smells very oniony which means this one's may have just more ingredients folded into it to stretch it up for those reasons right there I'm going to assume that a is the more expensive product it's definitely smoked has very little filler to it and it's just a beautiful dark looking blood sausages very excited to try awesome blood sausages making me think again that this woman is the little bit more expensive product has that much blood that much technique to get that in there without seeing all the filler that's a well-made product for sure I'm definitely going to start with this one because I could hardly wait and see when the amazing texture it's almost sticky and then that flavor of iron got smoked paprika in there very subtle not too much crazy and again it's definitely no doubt about it Abbi record pork and this one also looks really really good but yeah I'm gonna probably pull the casing off of that just actually try that one is a natural casing it just looks a little chewy but yeah it's really delicious but you can definitely taste more ingredients you don't right away taste the blood flavor there's more pork actual pork in there there's also onions that aren't perfectly cooked so it's kind of crunchy which means it might not be made that best quality that's a delicious blood sausage but when I consume blood sausage I really wanted to taste like the blood and I mean this is a really great product in my guest this one is definitely a miracle fork which is a black pig from Spain and that is a protected animal that has a dop a designation of origin of products to receive that it has to be made from a certain pig in a certain way which is out on beautiful farms and Ernie gigantic old oak trees and they're spending a good part of their life just consuming acorns and living the good life you see a DOP it's probably worth the upgrade I'll be really disappointed if this isn't the more expensive anyways I think this is about three times more expensive than this product two dollars and seven cents an ounce for sausage EA and 86 cents an ounce for sausage be worth every penny both of them are great sausages I would absolutely these any time of the week but sausage a is just yeah it's a real special sausage and for a sausage nerd like myself a special treat veggie sausages I guess it goes to show that Epicurious does have a sense of humor I have never made a veggie dog and I don't think I've ever consumed a vegetable sausage but obviously there's a you know a big need for these sausages if you're you know a vegetarian or off me for whatever dietary reason and you still want to enjoy grilling sausages out back I mean I'm all for it we're really gonna have to go through this together I'm we're gonna dive into these things we'll start with a this one here so cool it definitely kind of feels like raw meat there's some kind of casing on the outside that's like I'm not sure what that is it's it's kind of cool I'm gonna like get into this thing because I have no clue what's going on here I mean that looks so meaty I'm gonna definitely there it smells a little more like a health food store that's what I'd say like nuts I don't know anyways this one a sausage sausage be cooked I assume definitely more play-doh like ish oh yeah that one smells more like beans this is gonna be brutal if I had to go about making veggie sausage I would take you know a real ingredient maybe white beans or chickpeas maybe find like a rice flour or some kind of starch to make sure it binds in there then I would season it I don't know to me strangely enough this one looks a little more appetizing this one's a little I don't know buddy I think it's gray we're gonna heat them up we're gonna taste them and I hope my mind is blown with flavor because it's crazy they actually look really more appetizing than they did rhotic you know when they heated them up they browned up nicely the sausage a looks like the grill marks might have made this cool little crunchy texture on the outside got a squeeze a real quick-like firm bump just like a good sausage that's cool I mean it does look appetizing I would happily eat that this one too it was all gray and now that it's all grilled up it's it actually looks pretty appetizing it's brown it's got cool marks on it I'm not sure I'm gonna just have to taste it and see what that tastes like I don't even know what that is it it's not offensive at all but it definitely also tastes like a health food store I can what is the house like it's seasoned well it's got like good salt to it and it's just too mean it's just confusing I don't know what it is but yeah it tastes like pureed soup I don't know what's going on here I mean I'm not eating a lot of it that's something let's try the Mexican veggie sausage be here yeah I know that whole texture that whole flavor is just not made for to me I can't taste like garlic and real ingredient I can't even tell what the herb is that's just not my jam right there all said and done I do think that uh if I were missing me in sausage I would actually crave and enjoy sausages for all of those reasons the fact that it's just got some cool science in it it looks like me and I could have pinpoint exact space as their seasoning or proteins in it but it has flavor in it and it actually has a good texture I'm gonna go ahead and say that sausage a is the more expensive [Music] that was close to what I did it sign me up sausage sausages 64 cents an ounce and sausage 25 cents an ounce I don't need to hate on this by any means if this is filling a niche and somebody finds it absolutely delicious I'm all for it this is a better way to get protein to people that need proteins hand I am all behind it and I'm actually really happy that somebody is taking the time effort and care to make a delicious product out of it chicken sausage I love chicken sausage too so both of these look like they are casing free that means they probably stuffed them into a cellulose or a collagen casing cook them smoke them poach them whatever it is then strip them off if these were cased in a natural casing they wouldn't be quite as around if you look at sausage be here they're almost exactly to a tee the exact same sausage sausage a the same they're really really similar almost too flaw but they do look like they're nicely well-made sausages for this one you can tell from the pale color may not be smoked that is probably just steamed this may have smoke on the outside of it but again that is also a little too uniform so it might be a tell that it is a little bit of liquid smoke not actually smoked over real wood and chicken sausage well they smell amazing you know looking at them right away you can tell that we were right on the casing both smelled pretty good they both crisp up pretty even not too greasy started sausage a little squeeze there definitely don't we could see that but it's really very little fat's coming out of it oh yeah we're gonna have to give it a taste to see you know not a whole lot going on there definitely Apple and definitely sugar possibly maple I also just noticed that it's probably a low-sodium chicken sausage as well refreshing but it's still just lacking like the actual flavor and deliciousness of a real sausage let's try this one again when you squeeze it it's gotten a little bit more coarser you can see there's actual chunks of meat inside of there so a little bit more coarser well that one actually is moist has a nice texture really actually a good mouthfeel to it mmm it actually has a really good flavor that would be great off of the grill and if you're not even pork that's a really delicious sausage yeah this one's a leaner sausage low sodium this one is definitely a more enjoyable sausage yeah this one's gonna be a little bit tricky cuz you know chicken sausage is a little bit out of my wheelhouse I'm gonna go with my gut on this one and sausage B is definitely the more delicious sausage it has the smoke on the outside I really hope I'm 75 cent oh that was close I keep my job sausage a is 33 cents an ounce and sausage B is 75 cents an ounce those are pretty close you know the price of the proteins are always relatively low for a chicken sausage skinless boneless chicken breast is the number one selling protein out of most deli cases in America and that chicken has a lot of other parts on it and so if you're selling mostly chicken breasts no matter how great that animal is raised you have a lot of by-product that you saw into the sausage industry one thing people should look at when they're purchasing chicken sausages is to make sure that it has the USDA Organic label on the outside that'll say that the chicken had a better life and will be more delicious and better chicken kielbasa traditionally Polish sausage one of my favorite all-time sausages because it as to my favorite things in it it has a lot of fat and it's also traditionally smoked pretty hard in the original ways it could be pretty much any type of meat ranging from pork all the way up into horse as long as it had about 50% fat in it and was smoked heart and had a little bit of sweetness and garlic and other spices it was kind of falling under the blanket of kielbasa as you could see it has the more unique horseshoe shape in it it's because when we're producing these we produce them a little bit longer and we like to just loop them over a smoke stick so imagine a smoke stick coming through here and you loop the first one and then the second plenty loop over and a bunch of these continue and you smoke it like that maybe go back and you cut them up and then they have the traditional kielbasa shape a from a smoke perspective looks almost a little too uniform to make me think that this was actually smoked over real Applewood and of course if you smell it yeah it's pretty good it smells great but it definitely smells a little burnt and that's a for-sure way to tell that if it's a liquid smoke because it actually smells a little bit like it was gonna fire for a second as opposed to like delicious smoke coming off of an apple or something if you wanted to smoke something natural over Applewood it takes two to three hours to even get the flavor inside of its liquid smoke is a much quicker much cheaper and actually just a way to make it more consistent a lot of people like sausage B you can see is again to go back to the casings it's a natural casing as well this one but it has you know a little bit more of a lighter smoke and see the smoke actually had a little drip off of the bottom and when I smell it ya see it smells instantly like if you've ever smoked put wood chips on your grill and you had that beautiful perfume of Applewood that comes out or if you use Hickory and it's a little bitter you'll want to eat it you kind of crave it instantly we're getting spire folks right now before I try them I feel pretty comfortable saying that had a sausage a is you know a little bit more mass-produce they definitely probably put some kind of additives in there besides like milk powder it's definitely more red meaning that that's definitely nitrated product this one does have a little bit of hue to it but may not have as much nitrate a little bit of nitrate will instantly kill botulism a very dangerous pathogen sausages when sausage be here you can see when you squeeze it it's got a nice texture but it's still holding on to its grease in a good way and without a doubt it just smells more appetizing like when you smell it your entire my mouth waters I really just want to take a bite out of it so that's what when I'm looking for a kielbasa as we said it's supposed to be decadent it's supposed to be like all the garlic all the fat I wanted to fill my entire mouth full of smoke and really decadent like this isn't even a sausage for me like there's so much fat in there I'm not gonna eat this whole one in one sitting this is probably gonna feed me and three of my friends but it's really really good and I'll try sausage eh now we'll see what's going on here nothing really pops out like it doesn't smell like garlic or mustard it just kind of smells like again smoked and whatnot it's got kind of like a awesome hot Bologna kind of flavor texture to it there is garlic in it definitely dried garlic the thing that I noticed right away is the texture it's rubbery it also has a real strong celery flavor to it and it's not as greasy and as moist as I would like to have like a real kielbasa right now I think that sausage a is still an awesome kielbasa it's actually got a cool texture to it smells like smoke but I just think it's probably a little bit more you know industrially made sausage B has got to be the more expensive product just because of the real ingredients in it even if this is a cheaper one I'd still buy intendent ones that's good let's see sausage a 28 cents an ounce sausage be buck 25 an ounce again that just goes back to I'm assuming all the real ingredient but this one I would assume also has other additives in it to make sure that it kept all of its you know did it shrink and cooking and they could have put more or less any kind of filler inside of there to make sure they get more bang out of their protein for sure there's a bunch of sausages we didn't get to explore go to your butcher ask him what he's excited about go home throw them on your grill and just explore there's a lot of fun to be having out there with different types of sausages and a choose-your-own-adventure in sausage grilling

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 978,511

Rating: 4.8834038 out of 5

Keywords: cheap vs expensive, price points, sausage, sausages, elias cairo, sausage expert, expensive sausage, cheap sausage, cheap sausages, expensive sausages, cheap vs expensive food, sausage test, sausage tasting, sausage taste, sausage making process, sausage taste test, how to make sausage, taste test, sausage reviews, sausage comparison, sausage review, sausage testing, sausage price, blood sausage, bratwurst, veggie sausage, chicken sausage, kielbasa sausage, epicurious

Id: G0ydrPgRKA8

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019