Finally done with sausage!

[hc18flyer]

Well we finished our 3rd- 50# sausage makin weekend! I work with my Brother, Nephew, and Grandson, which is always fun! Everybody has 'jobs', and gets stuff organized, without a word being said. Course there is always 'stuff' said! Old Rock and Roll or Country on the speaker. Brother and I hope they carry on the tradition. Takes some time, but well worth the time spent for the comradery and end product! My Grandkids and daughters gobble it up!

[hc18flyer]

Our sausage is so light, it levitates! Bet you all are envious! hc18flyer

[Wild Bill 7]

Yes we are��

[Winger Ed.]

Looks good. I'll bet there isn't many ingredients in it that have names 40 letters long.

I quit hunting and doing my own processing several years ago.
Since grocery store sausage seems like its just salt flavored grease,
Mrs. Winger has banned it from the house- so I still make a run of our own once or twice a year.

Last week I did a run of brats, and a couple weeks ago I did a breakfast patty blend.
I usually do 40-60 pounds at a time, and the older I get--- the more I appreciate that electric grinder.

A word to the wise:
If the Mrs. has done a recent kitchen re-model-----
Wait at least a week before you throw a 110 pound hog- head, hide, & all up on top of her new counter tops
I did that a couple days after the new ones were installed--- once,,,,, but only once.

[Half Dog]

Ha, I love to hear the stories.

[curdog]

Job well done. Its alot of work ,but you know what your eating......................Curdog

[osage]

Those look great.

[armoredman]

Very jealous, sir - nothing like that down here. Yummy sausage...

[Jkrem]

This reminds me I need to make some.

[BJK]

I love our homemade sausage and I haven't made any for quite some time! It's past due. It's so much different than the garbage from the store!

It sounds like you folks had a good time and the good time hasn't ended. It's hanging there to be enjoyed and bring back the good times of the makin'. You folks enjoy every bite!

[IHuntDragons]

I would love to get some recipes to do this with my family.

[Winger Ed.]

I would love to get some recipes to do this with my family.

You do realize you're about to fall down a rabbit hole don't ya?

If you're at the entry level,
you can do well with a good quality hand meat grinder and a box of the good quality, name brand freezer bags.

This will get you off to a good start making a patty type breakfast sausage like you see at the grocery store.
It also makes great hamburgers when mix 1/2 & 1/2 with ground beef.
If you're good, Santa might bring you a horn type stuffer and some different kinds of casings.

If you can't find hog quarters at a meat market--
Grocery store pork butt or shoulder roasts are good for making any pork sausage.
I think they're a little too lean, so for every two of them I grind & mix in one of those 5 pound
packages of bacon ends & pieces.

Do a search for 'home made sausage recipes', or 'sausage making'. You can find a lot of good ones.
Also search 'sausage making supplies' for spices, equipment, other supplies.
'thespiceysausage.com' site has about a hundred recipes-- I've made several from there, and they're all good.
Another great site is 'meatprocessingproducts.com' for stuff and at least a hundred recipes.

Of all the recipes I've found, I do tend to use less salt than many of them call for.

[swamp]

I just made up my second batch of breakfast sausage. 6 lbs will last me quite awhile. Seems tiny next to you.
swamp

[Hogtamer]

That’s nice work and nothing is more satisfying.

[IHuntDragons]

You do realize you're about to fall down a rabbit hole don't ya?

Lol....definitely entry level, but I have an old hand grinder, as well as a grinder attachment for my kitchen aid mixer that I haven't used yet. Also have a couple vacuum sealers, so already a step up on that front I guess. Thanks for the pointers!

[TurnipEaterDown]

Do be mindful of the Kitchen Aid mixer. I killed the gearbox in the wife's twice (parts available from Kitchen Aid, and the prices isn't too bad), and I cracked the body on the grinder attachment (hoop stress too high: worm style hose clamp cobbled it up). The Kitchen Aid just isn't made for lots of grinding, more occasional hobby cooking. Works fine, but killing the gear sets becomes a bother, and I finally bought an LEM.
Another issue w/ the KA is heat build up during use. I worked though that by putting a bag of ice on top during grinding, but again this is a cobble. If the motor / gearbox is generating excess heat, something isn't ideal, and so it's a clue that the KA isn't OK for the job.
The LEM is so noisy I use earplugs in my kitchen, but no failure to be seen and stays relatively cool. I probably grind 20-40 lbs venison a year, which I don't see as a great deal, though I do feed it strips of partially frozen meat to enable better shearing of tendon / muscle group sheathing so that the cutter isn't constantly bogged w/ wound up material. The LEM goes through this w/o issue, the KA like I said, wasn't truly up to the job.

[hc18flyer]

One of our friends set up a larger grinder with a 3 speed mower transmission and a 1/2 horse motor. But we grind in reverse! A few years ago my brother bought A Cabelas 11 pound hand powered stuffer. Before that we used an old cast iron lard press. hc18flyer

[Winger Ed.]

One of our friends set up a larger grinder with a 3 speed mower transmission and a 1/2 horse motor.

My Grand parents on the ranch in the Texas Hill Country did their sausage making on a pretty big scale.
It was smoked and dried a few hundred pounds at a time. It was a pretty big mainstay of their diet.

As a kid, I was in a barn and asked what the odd looking car rim was that was hanging on the wall.
Gran Dad told me in the old days, when it was time to do meat grinding, they'd jack up the Ford Model A,
pull off a tire, and put it on to power their meat grinder by a big leather belt.

[BJK]

About Kitchen Aid...

Had one, ditched it. They have plastic gears and the motors can't handle any heat, that means actual work. We used ours very little before it needed repairs. I was making pizza dough when it failed. They have repairs down to a science and are very fast. That should be a tip off that they are built to be repaired and do it often. At one time they were actually made up to a quality standard and the real ones still are today, but they are in the thousands of dollars. They can be had today new. But the consumer KA is not that machine.

OK, now the grinder... it's garbage. It smears the fat and you don't want that for sausage. Maybe if the meat is frozen it will work. But read about the overheating and doing work with it again, frozen meat requires work to grind it. The KA mixer would be the last way I'd make sausage if you value your mixer. Will it be better than commercial sausage if made with thawed meat? Probably, since commercial sausage is made with garbage and yours will be made with love and good ingredients. But it's going to be hard on the machine. I did what I could to save folks grief. When I was researching KA AFTER our machine broke down I ran into folks who had spare parts on hand and got good enough at changing them that downtime was minimal. That convinced me to sell the KA for the cost of the repairs ($100 if memory serves) and get something of quality. Quality doesn't come cheap. You can pay it upfront and have something that works, or buy cheap and have downtime and grief.

Don't stress the KA for longest life w/o a trip (or trips) to the mothership. If it's used for cake batter it might last a very long time.

I bought an Ankarsrum Assistent (not a typo) and attachments. I have not regretted the purchase, not once. The grinder needs 3 people to keep it fed it grinds that fast. It will, conservatively, grind 300# an hour and no KA will handle the bread dough that I can make at once, not even the one for thousands of dollars. I have no idea what it sells for today. But back when I bought mine it was by far the best bang for the buck. I write that for the folks considering KA and not the folks with KA. I'd rather steer the folks looking to something problem free. But even accessories aren't inexpensive, but they work and hold up. It's designed to work and not be a lure with a hook.

[Winger Ed.]

Those appliances that do various different functions remind me of a street/trail motorcycle.
Its not very good at either.

If you keep a eye out, you can sometimes find KA mixers from the 60s or so.
I had one I found for $75. at a thrift store and grabbed it up.
It was old enough to still have metal gears. I bought it for mixing bread dough.
Like an old logging truck--- it just ran and ran....

I passed it on to a favorite niece when I got a big, bad boy Bosch.
As far as I know- it's still on the job.