The link below has recipes for several popular sausages. With good sanitation and freezing, I don't believe preservative chemicals are necessary. If you use nitrates or nitrites, be sure to carefully follow approved directions. Otherwise they can be dangerous.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Sausage Mania

My recipes are in my head. You start out with coriander, black pepper and sage for breakfast sausages. Adding the nexessary salt to taste. I mix the ground meat and cook a small portion in afrying pan to see what the flavor is like. Form there I can adjust the amount of spices. If you want a really goos juicy texture, you need a little sodium phosphate. There are several posts I have made previously that mentioned three companies that sell all the supplies. The Sausage Maker in NY, Allied Kenco, and Butcher Packer. All three have mixes and seperate spices. For the italian, you can have fennel, lots of garlic, oregano, dried peppers and dried onion flakes, as well as some high melting point cheddar cheese. As a twist, another kind is Chinese, which is the dried garlic mixed with the 'Ahh So' red sauce you put on ribs. If you only going to make patties, there is no need for casings, but for breakfast sausage links, I use sheep casings and for italian, I use hog casings. There is also edible dried cologen, but I like mine more natural. I also use a tiny amount of nitrates to prevent food poisoning during handling and stuffing. They all freeze well to. Do NOT skimp on the fat as it should be at least 30% of the weight. One final sausage is fresh kielbasa. These are made with lots of garlic, a little ground pepper and some marjorum. I use both fresh and drid garlic, onion and peppers, as well as the spices. For pepper, I ground it from in my small coffee grinder. The same for coriander. If you like a bit of heat in the breakfast ones, add a bit more pepper, or a few red pepper flakes. Soon, I will be doing a batch of Canadian bacon as well as some pastrami.

Ken I made 5 lbs of breakfast links using Collagen casing.. The only problem I had was getting the links seperated,, I would give the links a twist at the determined sizes, but by the time I would get to 3 or 4 links they would un-twist. what is the apprpriate method of having the twist to stay twisted? or would I have to tie them? thanks..

When I do the breakfast type, I use sheep casings which are much cheaper and easier to use. They do get rinsed and soaked in water, and when your done with the excess, place the rest of the casings in a container with plenty of kosher salt, and refrigerate.They keep forver in the fridge, as do hog casings, also packed in salt. When I make links, its usually about 20 pounds or more. With the end of the casing tied in a knot, I extrude out about 4-5 inch long sausage, pinch, and then twist CLOCKWISE for 3 turns, then crank out another link, pinch and twist COUNTER CLOCKWISE 3 turns, then back to pinch and clockwise, pinch and counterclockwise. What that will do is give each 6 turns in opposite directions, which is usually tight enough to hold them closed. Once I finish a whole 6+ foot length of casing, I place these in a a big pan in the fridge until I finish stuffing all of the batch. After I clean up the stuffer and things, I cut each link with a sharp knife at the twists. They get a wrap of plasticized paper, and then put into a amall Food Saver bag for 4-5 sausages in each bag, vacuum and seal. Don't over stuff the casings as they can burst, either during stuffing or when being cooked. The sheep casings are the same kind of casing they use on some natural casing hot dogs. I only use the edible collogen type dried casings when I stuff pepperoni snack sticks, a bit larger than a Slim Jim. The dried collegen casings once they are wet, the twisted tight, they seem to hold the twists well. Its all a matter on not allowing the sausages from untwisting when you stuffing the next one. Mine are done in a big wide shallow pan, and I use a little vegetable oil on the stuffer nozzles to help the casings to slide off a bit better. The sheep casings are very soft and thin, and quite strong. The most time I spend is untangling the mass of casings from its big snarled up ball. If I can't find an end, I just grab a long piece, cut it, and start a new end. I soak the casings in a small bowl of warm water prior to stuffing. The collegen type don't stuff well if they get wet.

Thanks Ken, that clears up a lot of the mystery to me.. I do have a question about casings.& freezing sausage. can they be put in Kosher salt, then vacuum packed with a Food Saver, & then stored in a fridge or frozen? or is that a no no.. I just bought a Food Saver model V1085 on ebay, but haven't gotten it yet.. Can I vacuum pack smoked sausage and raw sausage & freeze them?. Also can I put my dry spice mix in smaller zip bags, then put them in foodsaver bags ,vacuum seal, & store them that way? would I get a longer life out of the seasonings by freezing or refrigerating versus a pantry shelf?
Thanks,
John

NEVER freeze the sausage casings! This will have the effect of breaking them down when rehydrated and then they fall apart. Mine sit in a container with about half a cup of Kosher salt mixed in, and around them. They don't need a FS storeage. Its stored in the fridge at all times, when you're not using some. I pull out the tangled wad of casings from the container and seperate out what I need, the rest get put back in the container. Yes, a little bit of water can be added, but not to soak the casings, but to allow the salt to stick to everything, kind of like a slush. If I have too much casing that is soaking prior to stuffing, I just pass it through my fingers to remove the excess water and put the rest back into the container with a little added kosher salt. Some of my cases were as old as 6+ years before being used up, and I saw no difference in these compared to some I just bought. The FS isn't needed for the casings as the small amount of water and all that salt will help to preserve them. You can use the FS for both fresh or smoked sausages of all kinds. I made some pepperoni last year using the long dry process curing. It requires the other type of nitrate, and the sausages were just stuffed and dried in air for about a month. I prefer to buy whole spices and grind them when needed. That means whole peppercorns, coriander, mustard seed, etc. The reason I use dried onions and garlic along with fresh is because the dried don't add any water to the meats. I also use dried green and red pepper flakes as they are quite cheap and work just as good as fresh, again without added water. When storing the whole spices, pour them in pint or quart Ball jars and use a lid, along with the adaptor that comes with teh FS. This adaptor can allow you to pull a vacuum on the jar and seal it under vacuum all in one step. Avoid light when storing herbs and spices. Even for that, if its an herb (leaf based), most will lose flavor very fast, so buy fresh dried herbs when making the sausages. One kind I plan to make is a beef, with dried tomato powder and lots of basil. I might add garlic too. Some spices and herbs can keep a little longer well if stored in FS bags and frozen or refrigerated. Here, I don't bother, as I make so much, I usually run out of the spices before I run out of sausage that I make.

Thanks Ken, Your help is much appreciated.. I have saved your advice for future reference..