Thread: Sausages

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

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.

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.

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

Do you have a winning recipe?

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 .

yup I'm interested

Originally Posted by Gapped axe

yup I'm interested

me too

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.

@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.

@berg243

You mean bacon like this



That would take another topic

Originally Posted by berg243

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...

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.

Originally Posted by johnd

@berg243

You mean bacon like this

Attachment 85682

That would take another topic

Looks great!

What's the brew to make that?

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.

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


https://youtu.be/jvolBWZHZ2c