# Hunting > Game Cooking and Recipes >  Sausages

## johnd

Got to and made some Veni / pork sausages to day. Got a bit of some sheep casings to make some "brekfast" style links.
I was a bit slack and didnt weigh / estimate how much casings I would need, so ended up having to utilise the good old stand by collagen casings. These must be 5 yrs old or so, but a great standby if you need casings in a hurry and dont want to go to the drama of presoaking some more hog skins.


Collagen casings in 2nd row from top

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## Marty Henry

For the life of me I cant tie a hand of snags. I just end up making cumberlands, its quicker and easier for a numpty like me.

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## johnd

Try a few videos on yo tub, they tend to be a bit quick and theres lots of different ways. Stick with it the end result is worth the time.

Keep the links on the underfilled side of things first so you dont burst too many.

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## planenutz

Good effort. My attempts have been pretty dismal by comparison. 

Do you have a winning recipe?

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## johnd

I do now, its taken a fair few kilo's of ok sausages but i now have a pretty consistent formula.
Take notes on what you do, and write down any changes or tweaks you make.
The biggest issue I have always had is what to use as a filler, if you dont use a filler to bulk out the sausage meat, you end up with a very heavy and hard product that shrivels a lot when cooked. It wont retain moisture so ends up as a dry uninspiring product.
Of course experience comes in to play as well, if it wasnt for the fuck ups I still wouldnt know when I had it right.

A couple of tips I have learnt.

*1*  When mincing your meat, firstly start with a VERY cold sliced or chunked up meat ( almost frozen )  ( and free flowed not in a big lump ). 

*2* Run 50 % of it back thru a fine holed mincing plate.

*3* Clear any blockages on the plate / blade such as sinew or silver skin. If you dont clean it off the mince starts to become slushy. It should be coming out like  big fat spaghetti.

*4* Use a cake mixer with a dough hook attachment to blend all the ingredients and start the binding process. If you have a lot of meat do it in smaller batches, but aim for consistency. And add equal amounts of everything to each "batch"

*The recipe*

This is what you have been waiting for This makes up approximately 4 kg of sausages.

Hog skin casings .... you will need about 5 Meters of 32 to 38 mm skins ( I work on 1,25 M per kilo )

2 kg of target species meat minced.

2 x 500 gram tubes of sausage forcing meat ( from the supermarket ) I have settled on this after trying pork mince, pork back fat, mutton flaps etc
     It helps to bind it all together. You could run a kilo of pork mince through the wifes kitchen whizz to make it to that paste consistancy but its a lot simpler just to get the tubes on special and freeze them untill needed.

3 T spoons PLAIN salt ( this is to my taste on a low salt diet you may want more ) not iodised salt.

2 T spoons cracked black pepper

2 T spoons mixed herbs

 250 grams dry breadcrumbs ( real dry ) 

1/2 cup low fat milk powder

1 to 3 cups of cold water ( maybe a little wine if you feel ambitious ) Add the water as you mix it in the cake mixer, you dont want it too wet nor too dry. When its too dry its harder to put into the casings, smaller casings need more water as they dont take as much force as the larger casings and will burst.

Next time I do a batch i might do a video of making links if anyone would be interested.

Any questions just ask, I also make salami and corned venison / beef and do my own bacon. I dont claim to be an expert and a true butcher would laugh at my attempts but it keeps me interested .

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## Gapped axe

yup I'm interested

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## mikee

> yup I'm interested


me too

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## planenutz

Wow. That's great info there johnd and thanks for posting. I definitely need to revisit sausage-making. 

I've had great success with bacon (so easy!) but I had trouble with sausages and haven't even tried to attempt salami but would love to give that a go too. 

Couple of questions for you please:

1. I had a feeling that the local butcher puts ice into the mix rather than the cold water. Would that be right? Would that be better than the cold water, perhaps?
2. Have you tried those pre-mix sausage spices sold online? I note our local butcher uses those from time to time too... they taste good and are gluten free but I wonder if they're worth the effort for homemade stuff. (We now have a young coeliac in the family)



Cheers for that.  

 :Have A Nice Day:

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## johnd

@planenutz Yeah maybe ice to keep temps cool I just put it back in the fridge if its getting too sticky / warm.

Never tried any online ingredient mixes...... I was pretty reluctant to use the sausage tubes at first.
My main aim was to use stuff I knew what was in there.

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## johnd

@berg243

You mean bacon like this



That would take another topic

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## planenutz

> would like to try making a sugar cure bacon  next time I get a wild pig. also am keen to make some venison and pork sausages.


You have my attention...

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## nevereadyfreddy

Am going to try your recipe next time.
My last (first) attempt turned out pretty average.
Dry and and hard because 50/50 ven and pork ,obviously not enough filler as you describe.
They all got eaten so cant hurt to give it another try.
Helpful post.

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## Beaker

> @berg243
> 
> You mean bacon like this
> 
> Attachment 85682
> 
> That would take another topic


Looks great!

What's the brew to make that?  :Have A Nice Day:

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## johnd

The bacon was a dry cure ( in a bag ) then cold smoked then hot smoked ( to cook it )
Very simple recipe thats on the interweb or I have a book that deatails a lot of home  small goods processing called

Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn 

Next time I have time off work I will write something up and do a short vid on linking sausages.

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## johnd

As promised I have made a short video of how I link my sausages, 


https://youtu.be/jvolBWZHZ2c

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## gonetropo

those sausages look awful ! how dare you feed something that horrid to your family and friends !!!!! 
best send them to me for humane disposal  :Psmiley:   :Psmiley: 

they look bloody great, well done

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## Bill999

this is the sort of thing I need to get into
that and salami

did you make the salami in the background of your bacon pic?

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## gonetropo

now although i love wild game food i have to give a massive thumbs up to the butcher in lincoln canterbury. you will never find better sausages or bacon and he will process homekill
i am in no way associated with his business apart from the fact i am a customer and would not recommend him if he wasnt good.

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## johnd

> this is the sort of thing I need to get into
> that and salami
> 
> did you make the salami in the background of your bacon pic?


Definitely! I have gone the whole gambit with salami from hot smoked to slow baked in water bath and now I only do fermented. The difference with "cooked salami" to fermented is huge.
But you either love it or hate it and its a product that you need to get to grips with the potential problems.

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## Bill999

gear wise for the new to the hobby what would you recommend John? 
Im likeing the idea of sausages and maybe eventually salami if my sausages come out ok

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## johnd

@Bill999
Minimum requirements for sausage making.

Depends what you want to achieve.

if you want to process your own game animals into a final product you will need a* mincer* ( It makes economic sense too, even to buy "other" meats whole and mince them ) Probably something electric, and also use the buy once cry once principle.

I just bought a bunch of pork shoulders for $3.99 and minced it up .... also put one down as a bacon. So economically speaking your mincer can pay for itself over time by never having to buy shop mince again and just buying beef when its 10 a kg at Pac and Save, mincing it up and biff it in the freezer. Wallah! mince that used to cost you $16 a kilo is now only $10

A* suasage press / stuffer* makes a better job than a nozzle atttached to your mincer.
There is a variety of stuffers on the market. vertical or horizontal, water ( hydraulic) assisted
I have a little horizontal stuffer that holds about 2 kg and cost about $85 on TM

*Sausage skins.*.. you can get hog casings for a more natural product, or buy collagen casings as a standby / alternative.

Collagen casings will live forever in your cupboard, dont require any soaking, but dont hold up to cooking very well. They will split and curl like mad butcher sausies. They are very robust and probably a good begginner casing as they will take a lot of abuse while filling 

For fancy smaller brekkie sausages you can go to sheeep casings .... these tend to be quite fragile so leave them until you have mastered other casings.

*Salt.*... you want non iodised salt ( actually cant remember  why, but every thing I have ever read states non iodised )

*Pink salt* / prague #1 salt / curing salt ... totally different beast if making bacon or cured / smoked sausages you need this to help prevent getting ill from what you made. pays to read up about it a little first.
There is a #2 salt as well and that is for fermented salami and the likes. As above read up about it.

If you just wanted to give it a try first without a big outlay you could forgo the mincer and buy shop mince, mix it up to a recipe ( always use SOME kind of recipe ...so you can repeat what you did)  ( or omit shit you didnt enjoy )
you could use a funnel to push meat into a casing or just go without casings and hand roll the meat like some eastern recipes do.

Where to get this stuff from.
Dunninghams is a big supplier and there are others on the interweb, I get my stuff from Sausages by design.

Nowadays you can get everything you ever wanted off the suppliers, skins , mixes, et all but then ..... you can buy good sausages from the shop too.
I prefer to buy the minimum I need and make the rest.

So my minimum is

Electric mincer with enough grunt to do the job without having to wear earmuffs

Horizontal stuffer with 2 kg capacity

Hog skin 32 mm casings

2 big low plastic bins of about 10 to 15 liter capacity to hold raw product at each end of mincer.

A couple of 25mm dowel rods to hang finished sausages on for  a few hrs while they bloom / dry.

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## Bill999

thats gold mate 

I hear a lot about sausage filler, do you use it? is this the finer mince that you run thru the mincer again or is it some kind of grain product?

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## johnd

> thats gold mate 
> 
> I hear a lot about sausage filler, do you use it? is this the finer mince that you run thru the mincer again or is it some kind of grain product?


I never used to, but the result was a really dense sausage and very "meaty". I use a combination of things and it has evolved a bit over time. Breadcrumbs are a good standby filler, potato starch flour is another or porridge ground down fine. Or a bit of milk powder, these things all help to hold in the moisture and aid to combine the meats, and hold it all together.
What I use now is dried breadcrumbs and a little milk powder .... its in the recipe I posted on P1

Nothing here is set in stone, change it, add to it, remove stuff. Just keep the basics the same
Meat, salt, water, casings.
Mixing it all together is paramount to bring out the stuff that makes it stick together (actomyocin).

here is a link to some good info http://sausageswest.com/sausage-maki...iques/#Binding

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## kotuku

boys ,if you can get hold of canada goose breasts it makes fine sausages and even finer salamai.add a little paradise duck too for variety -a little pork fat plumps em out a bit and adds to the juiciness

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## john m

A productive wet windy day yesterday turning the boar my daughter shot and a smaller one shot by her BIL into sausages.

I killed a mutton to go with the pork. We spent most of the day turning out five different flavours.

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## Micky Duck

@planenutz  this ones for you...my family are all either celiac/dairy free/gluten intolerant    Im the only one who isnt.

unlike John we use NO fillers at all and actually LIKE  big meaty sausage...eat two and you are full.

our recipe is as follows

2lb meat

1 tblspn salt

1teaspn pepper

1teaspn paprika


a little cider vinegar...enough to get dry ingrediants mushy.


1 tblspn brown sugar


1tblspn herbs....we use mixed herbs an tuscan seasoning


1 tblspn corn flour


1tblspn garlic


20% pork fat by weight...we used belly /flap this time around as had killed a very fat pig and had heaps of trimmings.


oh and we added fennel from the garden...about a 1/2 cup full for 30lb meat we ended up with 2x 15ltr buckets full of bangers.

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## john m

We dont use fillers either just herbs and spices and hog casings.

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## planenutz

Thanks @Micky_Duck 

That looks bloody good. We have a carcass hanging in the chiller right now so I can feel a bit of an opportunity coming on to give this a go. Much appreciated mate. 

Cheers.

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## Bill999

im glad to see this back up the list 

would be nice to see value added cuts in my freezer rather than lumps

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## Edunn

I'll happily resurrect this thread. @johnd what's your process for the fermented salami?

I've looked up a few recipes - the gist of it is a bit of salt (3% weight) and acidity (wine) and then whatever ingredients you want to add flavour. Hang overnight at room temp then in your fridge (or somewhere cold-ish) for 10 weeks and you're in business. Assuming no black mould or anything weird starts to happen, should be OK?

What say you?

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## johnd

Unless you have access to a stable medium temp environment its too hot to do it at the moment. Autumn would be a good time to start some off.
Bactoferm ( the starter culture ) wont work over 27'C
For those of us that just " hang it in the shed" its just going to spoil untill the weather turns a bit cooler.
I will set to and right up my recipe tommorow.
I *wouldnt* just throw a bit of salt and wine into the meat and see what happens, fridges tend to be too cool to let the ingredientss do their job.

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## Cappa

Anyone got any experience with Dunningham's sausage products? A little bit confusing on their website as to which are pre-mixes of spice/preservative concentrates & meal or just separate non-mixed quantity bags.  Recommendations for best products of thier's to go with some Veni or wild pork would be appreciated?

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## muzza

Check out Scott Rea Project on Youtube for sausage information

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## warrior

Give sausage by design a call  top people

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## Cappa

Still struggling a bit to get good real texture in straight veni snags. They end up real soft and a little crumbly. How many times do you guys run mixture through grinder and on what plate size to achieve a good bind? Not using fillers either

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## R93

> Still struggling a bit to get good real texture in straight veni snags. They end up real soft and a little crumbly. How many times do you guys run mixture through grinder and on what plate size to achieve a good bind? Not using fillers either


I had the same problem when I started. You need a good binder. Ask your butcher and they will help you out with what to use. Extra grinding wont help a whole lot.

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## Cappa

Cheers R93. Any difference between a binder and a filler? Have chatted with a ex butcher and he talked about sausage 'meal' but didn't elaborate much. Have seen on here guys throwing in bread crumbs and milk powder - is this what you mean by a binder?

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## stevodog

Pretty good with some fatty brisket and served a little rare.
SA mate dried a whole lot out as well. It's amazing how much you can munch through with a few beers

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## R93

> Cheers R93. Any difference between a binder and a filler? Have chatted with a ex butcher and he talked about sausage 'meal' but didn't elaborate much. Have seen on here guys throwing in bread crumbs and milk powder - is this what you mean by a binder?


I think they give the same result. I have for now stopped making my own sausages when I found out my local butcher does it almost as cheap (And better) than I can when I am supplying the meat.
I use Dunningnams meal prepper. I think it cost around $10 for a kilo and a little goes a long way. You can get different flavours etc. My sausages improved a lot when using it.

For me, 25% pork fat, meal prepper and a heap of chilli and garlic works wonders.
Chamois mixed with other wild meats make the best sausages I have eaten.
Wild pork and paradise duck is awesome as well.
I do a lot of bull thar and mature ones have a unique taste at all times of the year. All that meat goes into sausages.

Great way to utilise the whole animal.



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## tiroahunta

> I had the same problem when I started. You need a good binder. Ask your butcher and they will help you out with what to use. Extra grinding wont help a whole lot.
> 
> Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk


We tried making snags a couple years ago. Yeah nah pay for the experts I reckon. My understanding is that veni needs fat to help it bind and also cook as it is a lean meat. Good luck. 


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## Cappa

Yeah using plenty of fat (30-40% wt/vol). Could try more i guess... Find most of fat seems to render out during cooking but it still keeps inside moist but just no snap or bind between meat as it were. Reading up they talk about need to get emulsification of fat to lean hence thought that extra grinding might help. This was also suggested when i emailed sausage by design and explained my process. Haven't tried any unique fillers or binders though so will look some up. Nah no point in quitting after a couple of minor set backs - that just wouldn't be DIY

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## R93

> Yeah using plenty of fat (30-40% wt/vol). Could try more i guess... Find most of fat seems to render out during cooking but it still keeps inside moist but just no snap or bind between meat as it were. Reading up they talk about need to get emulsification of fat to lean hence thought that extra grinding might help. This was also suggested when i emailed sausage by design and explained my process. Haven't tried any unique fillers or binders though so will look some up. Nah no point in quitting after a couple of minor set backs - that just wouldn't be DIY


Do you grind your fat and meat from slightly frozen? I just use the smallest sized plate my machine has. Sometimes grind it all twice but really no need.

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## Cappa

Yeah have always used fat and meat from frozen. Thaw it for an hour or so just enough to easily cube up with a knife but still pretty much frozen. I have just been running the coarse plate (8mm diam holes) as find this works really well for mince. Have a med (5mm diam) and fine (3mm diam) plate but have never used em. Usually try alternate cubes when mincing to help spread fat and lean throughout mix and to keep mincer head from being bound up with fat. Always try to keep mincer head cold to stop this also. Mix by hand for 10min or more to try get the sticky bind

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## R93

> Yeah have always used fat and meat from frozen. Thaw it for an hour or so just enough to easily cube up with a knife but still pretty much frozen. I have just been running the coarse plate (8mm diam holes) as find this works really well for mince. Have a med (5mm diam) and fine (3mm diam) plate but have never used em. Usually try alternate cubes when mincing to help spread fat and lean throughout mix and to keep mincer head from being bound up with fat. Always try to keep mincer head cold to stop this also. Mix by hand for 10min or more to try get the sticky bind


Maybe try using 3mm plate. I think my smallest plate iirc is 6mm and the last batch I made turned out pretty good. Not mealy like they usually were.
You will get it sussed. My mealy ones were not that fun to deal with but tasted good enough. The binder/filler helped a lot as it was the only change I made.

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## Cappa

Thanks - Will give that a crack next time!!

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## hotbarrels

So just had my first crack at linked sausages.  This is my second attempt at sausage making with the first one being a full length Boerewors.  Its definitely a time consuming process, but 25kg should keep the family happy for the next couple of months.

My question, does anyone cold smoke their sausages before freezing, and if yes, recommended method/timing/preferred wood??

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## Micky Duck

Looks to me like you have NAILED the linking up thing......sorry cant help on question other than to say nope we dont...just sit in fridge for day or two before freezing.

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## rugerman

Shit good effort mate, that is a fair pile of bangers  :Have A Nice Day: 
I have only hot smoked stuff so can't help you there sorry. As for wood, you can't go very wrong with Manuka, but I think some fruit tree wood might be good for added flavour.

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## Joe_90

> So just had my first crack at linked sausages.  This is my second attempt at sausage making with the first one being a full length Boerewors.  Its definitely a time consuming process, but 25kg should keep the family happy for the next couple of months.
> 
> My question, does anyone cold smoke their sausages before freezing, and if yes, recommended method/timing/preferred wood??
> 
> Attachment 171356


Looks pretty good! 
This chaps video of sausage linking helped me out: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UY5TiciEry4

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## hotbarrels

> So just had my first crack at linked sausages.  This is my second attempt at sausage making with the first one being a full length Boerewors.  Its definitely a time consuming process, but 25kg should keep the family happy for the next couple of months.
> 
> My question, does anyone cold smoke their sausages before freezing, and if yes, recommended method/timing/preferred wood??
> 
> Attachment 171356


So the general consensus on the sausages is that they have great flavour, but the consistency is a bit 'crumbly'??
I think that they may be stuffed a bit tight, which combined with the tougher pig skins (versus sheep), does make them loose a bit of fat during cooking.

Keen to hear your recommendations on how to reduce the crumbly texture.

Recipe used is:

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## XR500

Would some cornflour have helped with the binding any??? Say replace some of the breadcrumbs with it.

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## Dicko

Rice flour is the binding agent for snags. Not much required. If dry and crumbling may need to increase the amount of fat in them possibly though 25% should be enough.

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## sometimes1

Goat sausages 3 flavours plain cheese and onion and onion will be good 


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## Russian 22.

> Goat sausages 3 flavours plain cheese and onion and onion will be good 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


What do they taste like?

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## sometimes1

Awesome

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