A Sausage Making Photo Odyssey

A buddy of mine and I set a goal of making 100 pounds of sausage from the wild pigs and deer we shot this year--something neither of us had done. Here's a few pictures from the process. It was a battle, but worth the victory.










I know some of you pros are better, so share some pictures of what your process looks like. My silly blog has a few more pictures if you are inclined to see what it looks like when rookies attempt this art.

Who else makes sausage?

Looking good!

That looks delicious. Good idea using the cinder blocks and tin.

Looks very tasty, time to

Looks good. Invest in a 15# stuffer and it will make your link sausage a breeze . If I still had to stuff with a grinder , I would have given up long ago.

I'd eat it - looks great!

Looks good! I have a few times, gonna do the same thing in a few weeks with my brother.

Not trying to thread hijack... but can anyone tell me the trick to using natural casings? I've been using the collagen ones because I can't keep from ripping the naturals.

The trick is to keep em soaked until you use them and then go slow

Yea, we kept them wet and they did fine

This is spot on!

Good job!!!

looks good we make all our own as well. Like said above get you a vertical stuffer it works so much easier and faster that it is well worth it. The first year we did it with the grinder and this year we got the vertical stuffer and made 45 lbs of summer sausage and it was so much easier.

What kind did you make?

Walter

It was a recipe from Ruhlman's Charcuterie "uncle Milo's venison sausage"

It tasted great, had a good snap and wasn't too greasy, but still juicy

A good stuffer makes a world of difference. Good documentation on your blog.

Looks good!

How well does a cinder block smoker work? To make my own, what would I need to do?

looks good

Cinder blocks are like adult Legos. Just keep rearranging them till you like what you get. It was very inefficient, but that was good because I build a big fire that would last longer. I was tired of my grills rusting through every two years, but I saved the grills from about give of my old BBQ pits. I used rebar to hang my sausage, but I suggest using a smoother rod. The Tim we scavenged from the ranch and that's about it. Not fancy but effective.

Great job Andrew.

Well I'm hungry.

I finally started making my own smoked sausage almost a month ago. Did a 12 lb test batch then did a 60 lb batch 2 weeks ago. Still have a lot of processing to do, but I enjoy it.
I got all high tech on my cold smoker, can do 120 lbs per batch though if I wanted to.

Skinnerback that's a fine looking set up. Did you build it yourself? Impressive. Makes my smoker look like Fred Flintstones! Well done. (Sausage looks good too!)

Absolutely, get yourself a 15 lb stuffer. I have one from LEM and works like a champ. On the casings, I was having a lot of blow out problems with the small plastic bags of natural casings (can't remember the brand) that I bought from Allied Kenco. They often had holes & small cuts in them that I didn't know about until I was trying to stuff. So, had enough of that & ordered a couple of buckets of casings from "The Sausage Maker". Big difference, better quality casing. I rinse my casings well then let them soak for at least 24 hrs in the fridge. Then I add lemon juice towards the end of the soak in an attempt to give the sausage a better "bite". My advise on casings, let the casings soak properly so that they will be more pliable (will stretch about as far as they are going to, helps with the bite), and start off slow until you get in your groove & can speed up without over stuffing & tearing or under stuffing. Takes practice & patience but pretty darn rewarding once you think you've got it figured out.

Thanks yes I built it myself out of a used commercial food warmer box. I didn't need to get that fancy, but sometimes I grow a wild hair. Nothing wrong with your set up.

That cinder block smoker is a great idea! I've been processing my own deer for about the last 10 years. Cut my own sausage, steaks, hamburger meat etc. Much better product than I ever got from a processor.

Tips from my experience:

1. Save fat from trimmed Brisket all year. Grind it up with venison for an unbelievable burger.
2. Add diced jalapenos and chedder cheese to summer sausage.
3. Hi Mountain summer sausage kits are really good, all other types of sausage I use scratch recipes.
4. Sausage stuffer is the way to go. I'll never use the grinder to stuff again.
5. Grinder seems to work better if the meat is still semi-frozen.
6. Cut ALL fat from deer. even if you waste a little bit of meat that way. Fat contains the bulk of the "gamey" taste that some people are averse to.
7. add lots of fat to breakfast sausage

Man that looks good

Looks like some good eating

Ticket

Lets eat