My New Sausage Maker

3 years ago

last modified: 3 years ago

Every year, my neighborhood has a yard sale. Typically about 50-70 neighbors pay $25 to officially participate and be shown on a map, and others have unofficial sales. Our streets are full of people from all over, there is usually good stuff to be found. When SWMBO and I tipped from wanting “more stuff“ to wanting “less stuff“, which was about 10 years ago, we stopped seriously hunting the sales and now we just walk around a couple of blocks, drop by friends’ sales, etc. Of course, we still end up getting stuff, but do sort of have it under control.

This year, my prize buy was a “used once, like new” sausage maker for $50. This is a stainless steel cylinder stood on end. On top there is a screw press thingy, and somewhere on the bottom you put the sausage casing. It is about 2’ tall.

I don’t know why I bought it. The images of delicious home-made sausages, dried and frozen, made during the plenty of summer, stocked up to sustain us over the long winter of want, when all the grocery stores are fully open and accepting payment for sausage - but you never know, maybe Something Will Happen and then my home-made sausages will be the only thing to eat, and I’ll be able to barter sausages for grand pianos or BMWs - flooded my brain and I found myself handing money to the seller, who happens to be a friend, and probably would have told me why she only used it once, if I’d bothered to wonder.

Anyway, I have this contraption now, and am wondering . . . how do you make sausage? Fresh or dried? Is it possible to poison yourself through incompetence, or can you just willy-nilly grind meat and stuff it into a casing and live to tell the tale? Oh no, do I have to buy a grinding attachment for the Kitchen-Aid, or can I use my food processor? Favorite recipes?

I have vague ideas of making, in addition to tasty sausage, Healthy Sausage. Which means what, I’ve no idea. Something with tofu? DD told me that to use tofu as a meat substitute, you put it through repeated freeze-thaw-drain cycles, to extract water and change its texture. I could try that?

Featured Answer

Islay Corbel

3 years ago

I decided to start making sausages during covid lockdown. At least you'll always know exactly what's in your sausage. One of our favourites is chicken and pesto. I also really like adding an apple to a pork mix as it keeps the sausages especially juicy. I tried duck, but thought it a waste of expensive duck meat. I got this book which is fascinating. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Complete+Art+%26+Science+of+Sausage+Making%3A+150+Healthy+Homemade+Recipes+from+Chorizo+to+Hot+Dogs&ref=nav_bb_sb

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Comments (9)

plllog
3 years ago
Congratulations on your new toy! If nothing else, it should look decorative with your other semi-industrial appliances. So...is this just a sausage stuffer, not a grinder? I assume it's hand crank? I have the KA grinding attachment, and it has a stuffer nozzle which will do inch casings, but I doubt bigger. Will your new object do salami? bolonga? Sizes, I mean. You could while away your post-retitirment making an infinite variety of deli matter if so.

I was just thinking, as I was making lunch today, including an Aidell's smoked chicken sausage, that they must put the cheese in the sausage (which melts thoroughly) as a way to fatten up the otherwise dryness of the smoked chicken, Which reminded me of their rise to fame with chicken and apple sausage. It's sweeter than I like, but chicken is often served sweet, and following my revelation about why cheese which melts away, I realized the apples were also for moisture.

Anyway, have fun exploring. I've only made ”Italian” sausage fof cooking with.
John Liu thanked plllog
Lars
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
I have a sausage stuffer attachment in my Amazon wish basket, but I have not ordered it yet. I do have the meat grinder attachment, which it will work with, and I've used that quite a bit, but not lately.

My sausage recipe is very similar to my Italian meatloaf recipe, and so when I have wanted sausage, I make meatloaf in a regular loaf pan and then cut the meatloaf into square rectangular "sticks" that resemble sausage. I then use these sticks in recipes that would have needed sausage, such as pasta sauce or grits. Otherwise, I have just made meatloaf, but the only difference is in size and shape.

The main seasoning ingredients for Italian sausage (when I make it) are fennel (I grind the seeds), garlic, oregano, thyme, and a hot chili, such as cayenne or chile de árbol. For texture, I also add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and half a packet of gelatin. Since I make chicken or turkey sausage, I add a teaspoon of Knorr chicken bouillon, in place of salt, and this enhances the chicken or turkey flavor. Sometimes I add coarsely ground dried porcini mushrooms, if I want a mushroom flavor. I also sometimes cook the sausage as patties, if I do not want meatloaf.

If you want Chinese sausage, you could start with a Chinese meatball recipe. I've also used a Japanese gyoza filling recipe.
John Liu thanked Lars
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annie1992
3 years ago
Elery and I make all kinds of sausage, there are threads somewhere here with pictures. Your new machine sounds a lot like the one we have. Ours has various sized tubes to make sausages from small breakfast links to larger brats and even larger venison summer sausages.

We started by grinding the meat with the food processor, but eventually moved on to a Kitchen Aid grinding attachment then to an electric meat grinder. We've made various kinds from andouille to sweet italian to venison sausage with cheese, some liverwurst at the urging of Peppi's sweet and dear department father, Augie.

It really works pretty slick if you have two people, but it's harder to hold the casings, twist the links, turn the crank to press out the meat, all with only two hands, LOL.

I get most of my casings and supplies from Detroit Butcher & Packer, https://www.butcher-packer.com/, and our local stores carry some, especially the Amish and Mennonite community groceries. I get recipes on line or from the book "Charcuterie". A very helpful and comprehensive website with a lot of recipes is here: http://www.lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage%20recipes.htm#FRESH

And I haven't poisoned anyone yet. I haven't ventured into the cold smoking, dried, long cured, etc., my sausages are generally fresh and eaten promptly or frozen for future use. I don't add any of the preservatives, pink salts or whatever, because of that.

We make various sausages every year and I no longer even buy breakfast sausage, when we have a pig slaughtered I get plain ground pork so I can season my own, negating the need for that meat grinder. I also get venison and beef ground to my specifications but if I want to make something like liverwurst or lamb sausage, I have to grind my own.

Have fun with your new toy!

Annie
John Liu thanked annie1992
John Liu
Original Author
3 years ago
Here is the Sausage Stuffer. It says it hold 5 lb and works with casing up to 1”.

Pork and apple sounds great, as does chicken and pesto. I’d like to make Chinese sausage, which is sweeter than Western sausage.

DD wants me to haul this down to Berkeley in a week, so we can try making sausage there.
Islay Corbel
3 years ago
It's a lot of fun. And, there's the childish, funny, giggly side of it too.
HU-547125811
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
I did a quick GWeb search. No real active moderators here so it is messy and a waste of time. My long-winded post is outdated. 2013 was my fist sausage batch. I've up-graded since then.

Annie helped alot back then. 10years ago. I use ButcherPacker from her recommendation.

Best is to google like HankShaw and others.

I don't have a sausage 'stuffer' like you have. I've never needed one. My money went into a quality commercial grinder.

We make things we can't get locally like Louisiana boudin. Spiral merguez. Custom lean burger mince. Lamb and pork, etc. Trimmed of fat to our liking.

2012 our roadside favorite butcher retired. His son took over and over salted and added so much fat, even the hard bits. Horrible.

We do all our grinding outside on a stainess table...easy hose clean and rinse. BarKeep.

Chill the grinds. Then use a kithcen aid attachment, --not made by KA, to fill using casings from ButcherPacker. Half of our grinds just go into the freezer in one pound packages.

We have never found it 'fun'. A bit of a 'grind', (yuck-yuck). Just like our mince/grinds just the way we like them and know what is in it.

-sleeve
HU-547125811
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Boudin was the most likely instigator in our sausage making desires. NewOrleans i called home for a half dozen years in my early twenties.

Eater has some quality produced videos. This one in my sausage file is most like the one we make. May be odd out of context for a sausage but, like scrapple, we love it.

-sleeve
annie1992
3 years ago
John, that is the exact stuffer I have. It does hold quite a lot of meat, but the last bit in the bottom will remain in the barrel and you'll have to do something with it. We usually just make patties and fry them for sandwiches.

I actually enjoy the process of making sausage, cooking bits to check for seasoning, looking for new recipes, etc. And then, of course, there is the fun of eating them, LOL.

Like sleevendog said, it's great for making things that are not easily available, which is a lot here in the sticks, probably less of a problem in bigger cities. And, like sleevendog, I know what I like, so I can season and grind to my own tastes.

Annie

My New Sausage Maker

Islay Corbel

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