Sausage Making

Sausage making is not as hard as it seems. With a little practice you can be making links as good as the local butcher at your meat market. There is a growing number of ordinary every day people that make their own sausages. In fact it can become somewhat addicting. You should start with making a simple style sausage such as Breakfast sausage or even some Brats. As time goes on you will start making several types and you will get better as well.

Sausage is made from ground meat, ground pork fat such as fatback, salt, herbs and spices. Typically the sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may be removed afterwords. Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages may be preserved by curing, drying, or smoking.

A Little Sausage History

Sausages are a result of economical butchery. Traditionally, sausage-makers put to use tissues and organs which are perfectly edible and nutritious, but not particularly appealing such as scraps, organ meats, blood, and fat - in a form that allows for preservation: typically, salted and stuffed into a tubular casing made from the cleaned intestine of the animal, producing the characteristic cylindrical shape. Hence, sausages, puddings and salami are amongst the oldest of prepared foods, whether cooked and eaten immediately or dried to varying degrees.

Traditionally, sausage casings were made of the cleaned intestines, or stomachs in the case of haggis and other traditional puddings. Today, however, natural casings are often replaced by collagen, cellulose or even plastic casings, especially in the case of industrially manufactured sausages. Some forms of sausage, such as sliced sausage, are prepared without a casing. Additionally, luncheon meat and sausage meat are now available without casings in tin cans and jars.

The most basic sausage consists of meat, cut into pieces or ground, and filled into a casing. The meat may be from any animal, but traditionally is pork, beef or veal. The meat to fat ratio is dependent upon the style and your liking. Some use fillers, the filler is used in many sausages it helps them to keep their shape as they are cooked. As the meat contracts in the heat, so the filler expands and absorbs the moisture lost from the meat.

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Looking for help?

If you are looking for help on making sausage or have any questions. Feel free to join our forum. We have many sausage heads that are willing to help you. You to could become a Smoked-Meat.com Sausage Head.

Types Of Sausage

Cooked Sausage: Made with fresh meats, and then fully cooked. They are either eaten immediately after cooking or must be refrigerated.

Cooked Smoked Sausage: These are cured, cooked and then smoked or smoke-cooked. They are eaten hot or cold, but need to be refrigerated.

Fresh Sausage: Made from meats that have not been previously cured. They must be refrigerated and thoroughly cooked before eating.

Fresh Smoked Sausage: Fresh sausages that are smoked. They should be refrigerated and cooked thoroughly before eating.

Dry Sausages: These are cured sausages that are fermented and dried. They are generally eaten cold and will keep for a long time.

Bulk Sausage: This refers to raw, ground, spiced meat, usually sold without any casing. Like breakfast patties.

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Meat Grinders

A meat grinder or meat mincer is a kitchen appliance for grinding, fine mincing or mixing raw or cooked meat, fish, vegetables or similar food. It replaces tools like the mincing knife, for example, which has been used to produce minced meat, filling etc. The producer puts the minced food into a funnel, which is placed on the top of the grinder. From there the material goes on a horizontal screw conveyor. This screw conveyor, that can be powered by a hand wheel or an electric motor, squashes and partially mixes the food. At the end of the screw conveyor there is a knife installed directly in front of the fixed hole plate. At this opening the minced meat comes out of the machine. The fineness of the meat depends on the size of the holes of the plate.

What size or type of a grinder do you need. It Depends on the amount of sausage you will make and how often. There are some that are completely satisfied with a hand grinder others purchase inexpensive ones around $100 - $200. These work well and can grind 10 - 20lbs. of meat in just a few minutes.

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Grinder plates and their uses

Grinder plates have multiple holes drilled in them to give you different size pecies of meat. Below is a idea on what uses each plate gives you.

3/32" & 1/8":  Fine grind - Bologna, Franks, Forcemeats, Hamburger & Beef Jerky

5/32" & 3/16": Medium grind - Breakfast Sausage, Hamburger, Polish & Italian Sausage

1/4": Coarse grind - Hamburger, Salami, Summer Sausage, Pepperoni & Bratwurst

3/8": Coarse grind - First grind, Chili meat & Chorizo

1/2": Very Coarse - First grind, Chili meat, Stew meat & Vegetables

3/4": Very Coarse - First grind or Chunking meat

Sharpening the knife of a meat grinder is easy. You also need to sharpen the plate at the same time,  they ALL need sharpening especially the plates. The plates are not perfectly flat plate! First you need a hard surface that is perfectly flat. You can use a 12x12 marble tile from home depot. Also you will need wet/dry sandpaper, 100, 220, 3-400 grit.The plate just needs to be sanded perfectly flat. put some water on your flat surface, then lay the 100 or 120 grit sandpaper down, then a little more water on that. The water makes the sandpaper stick to the tile, and the flat surface of the tile translates over to the plate. Just lay the plate down on the sandpaper and apply even pressure, then move the plate in a figure 8 pattern. After a few minutes lift the plate and rinse it off. If you hold it at an angle you can see where you have been sanding. You want to keep sanding until you see an even coverage of sanding marks on the entire plate. Once that is done, move up to a finer grit and do it again. I go all the way down to 800 grit to get a very shiney surface, but 600 is good enough.The knife is done the same exact way. You could try to sharpen the angled part of the blade... but just honing the bottom has always gotten them more than sharp enough to grind well.