crrush wrote:How much did you pay for the casings? I'm curious if they're sticking to their original quote of $4/pound.

Unfortunately, I can't find the receipt. I was far less ambitious than you, since I knew it would be just me and my gf in our tiny kitchen (though from pics it looks about the same size as yours) so i only made about 2.5 lbs of sausage. I bought 2 casings, pre-tubed of course, for about $2. I used maybe 1/3 of one casing.

I am not sure what that works out to per pound, but it was dang cheap.
They sure do salt those things though!

MikeLM wrote:Looking at your equipment, I think it would have taken me, with my rinky-dink equipment, about two hours to make them shiny clean and ready to season.Mike

Mike...my new best friend.

I actually tried to recruit a friend who has access to a glass bead blaster (or whatever you call it), but it didn't work out. So...shall I take this as an offer of help if I manage to find another rust bucket stuffer? I'd love to restore another one if I find a similar bargain.

I see some sausage bartering in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudin

As long as your exploring sausage making I recommend looking into this stuff.

Got me wondering if there is a Vegan friendly sausage casing. No not for me I'm looking forward to my heart attack(s).

I'm no stranger to boudin.

I was planning on making boudin blanc the next time we break out the stuffer.

Until then, I satisfy any craving for it at Ron's Cajun Connection in Utica, mentioned in this thread.

Per the original excellent post, how does one use a vacu sealer without smashing the sausage? Do you need to freeze it first?

That's what I do. It doesn't have to be frozen solid - just firm and it works fine. Another option with some things it to use the manual air evacuation on the machine. If you take it out slowly, you can sort of prevent crushing.

I'm always happy when this post pops up: this is one of those where I re-read the OP every time it's bumped. If we do, indeed, get ahold of a stray deer, I plan to make Italian Sausage with venison scraps and pork nubbins - which means our go-to meal-in-a-hurry will be entirely homemade except for the noodles, as I've been putting up jars of marinara as well.

Marshall K wrote:Per the original excellent post, how does one use a vacu sealer without smashing the sausage? Do you need to freeze it first?

We've never had any problems with sausage getting crushed using the FoodSaver dry seal...the sausage is medium firm when cold, but the suction on a FoodSaver isn't so strong as to crush the sausage, either.

The weather outside and having this post rekindled is giving me a yen to make more sausage...

I thought this might be the best place to post this.

I've always felt a special kinship with butchers and makers of fine sausage. My Grandfather was a butcher as was his father and his father's father before him, etc. Whenever I pull out my equipment I wonder if I had found my desire to make encased meats had been discovered at an earlier age whether I would have had the chance to work side by side with Grandpa.

Yesterday I woke up and felt the urge to stuff freshly ground meat hunks into casings. I pulled out my favorite book for inspiration and decided on two recipes, Chicken with tomato and basil, and hot Italian. At the end of the day I ended up with 4.25lbs of chicken sausage and 10lbs of Italian. Here are the pics of the process.

My sausage making set-up


Chicken Sausage Mise


Ready to mix


Chicken mixed and spread on a baking sheet to freeze up a bit before grinding


Stuffing the casings (sorry no pics of grinding)


Linked and vacuum sealed


Italian mise


Grinding in Process


Using the mixer to get primary bond


Making sure links are even!


Linked


Italian done! (I packaged half in bulk half linked)


Overall not a bad haul for a few hours work

Regards,

Flip

looks great, nice post

Flip--

*Very* nice bit of work! Well done!

I have a question: you used a mixer to get a 'primary bond.' That's a step I've never known about in making 'standard' sausages, i.e., like stuffed Italian, brats, etc. [I know that I have to work the ground meat when I'm making cevapcici; and when I'm making Chinese dumpling-stuffing I know that I have to mix it vigorously so that there's a stickiness to hold the stuffing together.] Is that what you're doing when you produce your 'primary bond'?

Most importantly, I've really not like the gritty texture of most of my stuffed sausages, e.g., Itals, brats, etc. Might it be my lack of a mixing step that accounts for the grittiness? (Seems to me that might very well be the case...)

Geo

Geo wrote:Flip--

*Very* nice bit of work! Well done!

I have a question: you used a mixer to get a 'primary bond.' That's a step I've never known about in making 'standard' sausages, i.e., like stuffed Italian, brats, etc. [I know that I have to work the ground meat when I'm making cevapcici; and when I'm making Chinese dumpling-stuffing I know that I have to mix it vigorously so that there's a stickiness to hold the stuffing together.] Is that what you're doing when you produce your 'primary bond'?

Most importantly, I've really not like the gritty texture of most of my stuffed sausages, e.g., Itals, brats, etc. Might it be my lack of a mixing step that accounts for the grittiness? (Seems to me that might very well be the case...)

Geo

Geo, thanks for the feedback. The mixing step is exactly what you assumed, just to get that stickiness. I used to feel the same way as you about the texture of my sausages (i.e. gritty). I now include a trip to the mixer (1 min on #4 using my KA Pro 600 with the paddle attachment) for all of my sausages whether stuffed, pattied, or bulk. I find that the texture is greatly enhanced. In fact, I just fixed my mixer after it broke during my last sausage making event. I ended up giving away that entire batch (10lb andouille) because the texture was so off.

Flip

SO...
With what's in the freezer + a bucket list endeavor, I've thought about making snausages again. A few, five years ago, I bought some casings from Paulina, but never got around to using them. I just read the few mentions of the KA stuffer attachment which has been sitting in it's box on a shelf for 7 years, unopened. I picked the box up and said to myself, "dammit, we got time, now." Wondering if anyone recalls what the issues were with the attachment that made it near useless? The attachment box SURE seems light. I'm guessing it's a flimsy plastic doodad.

Also, my initial thought for the first trial will be pork loin + fatback, and probably some "pork stew" meat from my local mexican mkt. Don't judge, I have 2 giant whole pork loins in the freezer (Costco Black Friday deals.) My guess is that pork loin is far too lean, so I'll cut in generous fat. I'll plan on:

Some standard breakfast sausage patties.
An Italian tinged cased sausage
Two odd flavors of a cased sausage that I've been dying to make, that I won't disclose.

Any general tips, or ideas? I'll web some recipes and methods up. These won't be cured. I'm not even thinking about Pink Salt at this time. I'm thinking:

Grind
Flavor/season
Panfry a tiny bit to sample, let it rest in the fridge overnight for flavors to meld.
Stuff
Vaccum seal & freeze.

I make a lot of sausage.

With your plan absolutely no need for pink salt.

I use the KA grinder and KA mixer but a dedicated stuffer: https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/le ... rtclssgcfp

I started with the KA stuffer and it does work, but it’s really hard. You can’t control the speed was my biggest complaint. It also introduces a lot of air ( but most stuffers introduce some air - you poke a hole in the casing to let the air out.

Biggest tip is absolutely keep everything cold. Put your grinder in the freezer until ready to use it. Make sure your meat and fat is semi-frozen. Make sure everything is very cold when stuffing.

I hope you aren’t using 5 year old casings. You need about 2 feet of casing per pound of sausage. If you need casings, pm me and I can give you some. Pm me with any questions you have

lougord99 wrote:If you need casings, pm me and I can give you some. Pm me with any questions you have

Generous offer on the casings, though I prefer 'we' learn from the questions, because you never know when someone will follow in your footsteps.

Regards,
Cathy2

lougord99 wrote:I hope you aren’t using 5 year old casings. You need about 2 feet of casing per pound of sausage. If you need casings, pm me and I can give you some. Pm me with any questions you have

Just ordered some "pre-tubed" off of Amazon. Thanks! Keeping everything as cold as possible will be noted. I'm not gonna do all the flavors at once. Probably just a few lbs of one flavor per day, so after a few days, hopefully I'll get the hang of how the KA attachment works, or be frustrated enough to know if I want to make it again, I need a better stuffer.

seebee wrote:hopefully I'll get the hang of how the KA attachment works, or be frustrated enough to know if I want to make it again, I need a better stuffer.

In another life, Russia, I . . . Wait, that's Cathy not me.

'Bout a dozen years ago I was on a sausage making spree, KA with all the do-dads worked fine for my tenish pound batches. Everything cold/cold/chilled is imperative.

I mainly worked from Hot Links And Country Flavors: Sausages in American Regional Cooking, with a little Ruhlman thrown in for good measure, with good to very good results.

Keep it cold, make sure it's bound correctly, don't skimp on the fat. Lean sausage is basically steamed, ground meat in bag (aka casing).

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Kitchen-Aid attachments (lots of plastic) but they'll work just fine while you're learning and deciding how much you like doing it. If you're into it, you can buy dedicated pieces of equipment that will make the job much easier and more efficient. Iirc, the main barrier on those is storage space, not cost.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:If you're into it, you can buy dedicated pieces of equipment that will make the job much easier and more efficient.

KA for sausage is entry level, if one is getting serious better options abound. That said, if the KA is what you have jump right in! Don't let equipment slow your start. I'm sure some caveman (caveperson?) grandmother made fantastic sausage using a horn and dino guts.

G Wiv wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:If you're into it, you can buy dedicated pieces of equipment that will make the job much easier and more efficient.

KA for sausage is entry level, if one is getting serious better options abound. That said, if the KA is what you have jump right in! Don't let equipment slow your start. I'm sure some caveman (caveperson?) grandmother made fantastic sausage using a horn and dino guts.

Absolutely. Use what you have and decide if you like it before you plunk down money on additional, single-task equipment that may see little or no use.

=R=

Ok, so the casings arrived.
I'm not in a rush, just casually getting the ducks in a row. Question:

The pork I have for this is a whole, big ol' pork loin. My assumption is it is FAR too lean for snausage. I'm wondering about what I should cut in? I have a TON of cheap raw bacon in the freezer. I can grab a block of pork belly, or pork "stew" meat at any time at the fruit market down the street. Any of those make sense? Something else better?

seebee wrote:Any of those make sense? Something else better?

Bacon in all but the most minute quantities will overpower the sausage, unless you wish to make bacon sausage. Pork belly would be good, if it brings up the fat ratio high enough. Fatback is king if available to you.

You are hopefully pushing towards 30% fat. If you use pork belly, I would want to go 50-50 belly and loin.

I also think most butchers would be willing to sell you fatback.

If you decide to buy something specifically for the sausage, most pork shoulder roasts with a fat cap have plenty of fat for this.

Also, it is usually not clear how much casing is on the pre-tubed casings. The ones I have seen have about 20 feet on the tube with a place to cut it in the middle so that you have the 10 feet you need for 4-5 lbs of sausage. What size casings did you get? I usually use 32-35mm casings.

lougord99 wrote:You are hopefully pushing towards 30% fat. If you use pork belly, I would want to go 50-50 belly and loin...

What size casings did you get? I usually use 32-35mm casings.

I'll prolly go with pork belly. My lil mkt down the street has prepackaged 1lb blocks of it in the butcher case. Easy peasy. Thanks for the 50-50 tip.

My casings are 35-38mm.

seebee wrote:

lougord99 wrote:You are hopefully pushing towards 30% fat. If you use pork belly, I would want to go 50-50 belly and loin...

What size casings did you get? I usually use 32-35mm casings.

I'll prolly go with pork belly. My lil mkt down the street has prepackaged 1lb blocks of it in the butcher case. Easy peasy. Thanks for the 50-50 tip.

My casings are 35-38mm.

Generally speaking, a butt/shoulder is the best cut for sausage-making, as it's just about perfect on the meat/fat ratio. You do need to trim away the silver skin and sinew before you grind it, though or it'll clog up your grinder.

=R=

Totally noted about the cut. This is my first trial, and I wanna give it a go with the loin because I have two giant ones in the freezer, like, Thanksgiving company size - Costco size. I planned on using one for bird day last year when we had the entire clan, but it just didn't work out. One of the loins is 3 years old, the other is 2 years old. Just a project / test run, to use it up, and finally use the KA attachment that's been sitting on the shelf for a year. (You have a little used Vitamix? Listen - I have one that I've NEVER used - wife 1.0 loves to buy gadgets - Vitamix blender, KA big blender, and a Ninja - Damn You, Costco Demos!)

More of a test run of process - small batch, see what happens.

Ok, more ducks in a row. This rainy morn has me thinking about getting everything together and doing this next weekend. I'm envisioning the fam in the kitchen next Saturday am with the oldies* blasting, and everyone laughing because sausage is flying everywhere like a Lucy or Seinfeld skit.

After a few youtube vids, the method:
Night before: soak the casings in water, change the water a few times.
Night before: Cube the Pork loin and pork belly or fatback

1. The first grind.

2. Once ground, hand mix very lightly with spices.

3. Fridge for an hour, clean the KA

4. pan fry a few spoons of each type to check for spice levels.

5. Adjust spice levels as needed

6. Second grind with all of the spices to get them well incorporated

7. Back in the fridge, get everything ready for the stuffing.

8. Stuff, work on getting bad air pockets out, and twist/tie - hopefully I'll get the hang of this quickly.

9. Let them rest - back in the fridge for the better part of the day.

So after this - anyone think I should smoke them off, and THEN vacuum pack/freeze, OR, should I vacuum pack and freeze them raw? The big ol pork loin I'll be using will be coming from a deep freeze, and thawed / mostly thawed, so this will wind up being double frozen raw pork if I freeze them raw.

I'll be doing breakfast sausage patties.
2 different global cuisine inspired ethnic flavors.
Probably some standard Italian style if I have any fennel seed, but if not, I have one of those small jars of "brat seasoning" from Penzey's I bought for this a few years ago. Might as well give that a go.

*I remember back in the day thinking my parents' "oldies" were Stevie Wonder, Chaka, James Taylor - blasting through the house when it was family project time. Our house's "oldies" will probably be remembered by the kids as The Cure, Smiths, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Flock of Seagulls (HA!), 311, Zeppelin (we're all over the map.)

seebee wrote:Ok, more ducks in a row. This rainy morn has me thinking about getting everything together and doing this next weekend. I'm envisioning the fam in the kitchen next Saturday am with the oldies* blasting, and everyone laughing because sausage is flying everywhere like a Lucy or Seinfeld skit.

After a few youtube vids, the method:
Night before: soak the casings in water, change the water a few times.
Night before: Cube the Pork loin and pork belly or fatback

1. The first grind.

2. Once ground, hand mix very lightly with spices.

3. Fridge for an hour, clean the KA

4. pan fry a few spoons of each type to check for spice levels.

5. Adjust spice levels as needed

6. Second grind with all of the spices to get them well incorporated

7. Back in the fridge, get everything ready for the stuffing.

8. Stuff, work on getting bad air pockets out, and twist/tie - hopefully I'll get the hang of this quickly.

9. Let them rest - back in the fridge for the better part of the day.

So after this - anyone think I should smoke them off, and THEN vacuum pack/freeze, OR, should I vacuum pack and freeze them raw? The big ol pork loin I'll be using will be coming from a deep freeze, and thawed / mostly thawed, so this will wind up being double frozen raw pork if I freeze them raw.

I'll be doing breakfast sausage patties.
2 different global cuisine inspired ethnic flavors.
Probably some standard Italian style if I have any fennel seed, but if not, I have one of those small jars of "brat seasoning" from Penzey's I bought for this a few years ago. Might as well give that a go.

*I remember back in the day thinking my parents' "oldies" were Stevie Wonder, Chaka, James Taylor - blasting through the house when it was family project time. Our house's "oldies" will probably be remembered by the kids as The Cure, Smiths, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Flock of Seagulls (HA!), 311, Zeppelin (we're all over the map.)

Seebee,

I've found that unless a specific sausage recipe or variety calls for it, a second grind is not necessary. It really depends on what you're making. Some sausages benefit from it. Others don't.

Also, adding seasoning in stages seems like overkill, though frying up a bit of your grind to taste before finalizing is wise. Definitely add salt to the unground chunks/cubes as early as you like, as the cw on that is that it's helpful. However, once you add the salt to the ground mixture (or grind the mixture that contains salt), it's time to roll (or stuff, as it were). After the salt is added, the ground mixture will get stiff, making it considerably harder to work with. Plus, you'll get the typical salt-induced moisture leakage (which is inconsequential, and possibly beneficial, if you add it before you grind). So, whatever stages you implement, don't dawdle once the salt and ground meat are combined.

=R=

Thanks, Ron!
The seasoning is not planned in stages - just one seasoning, and then letting those flavors meld, then tasting and adjusting (if needed.) The "if needed" part will be for the rogue 2 flavors I'll be attempting, which reminds me to start looking for a recipe if anyone has made an attempt using the ingredients I'll be using.

The 2 videos I looked at that used the KA had one dude who ground 2x, and he looked like he'd been making snausages minutes after he was born, so I just assumed that guy knew best. The other guy only ground once, but was less pro "seeming." The guy who ground twice made the point several times not to overwork the meat, and to keep it cold. BTW, early this am, while I was hunting around the web for sausage tips, I saw your name on some other cooking site in a thread about making sausage. It was your ronnie suburban moniker and a drawing of you as an avatar - post from 2006. I snickered.

Sooo -
My lil fruit market down the street had no fatback for sale. I'm guessing I might get a diff answer depending on which guy behind the counter I ask. They DO make their own sausages. But the main gripe is my own fault. The "pork belly" I saw was actually blocks of salt pork, which I gather is NOT the same thing. The label was "Salt Cured Pork Belly" - my own fault for not looking closer last time. Back to square one for fat, but I'm resourceful and determined if nothing else.