Thread: Sausages

Originally Posted by Bill999

this is the sort of thing I need to get into
that and salami

did you make the salami in the background of your bacon pic?

Definitely! I have gone the whole gambit with salami from hot smoked to slow baked in water bath and now I only do fermented. The difference with "cooked salami" to fermented is huge.
But you either love it or hate it and its a product that you need to get to grips with the potential problems.

now although i love wild game food i have to give a massive thumbs up to the butcher in lincoln canterbury. you will never find better sausages or bacon and he will process homekill
i am in no way associated with his business apart from the fact i am a customer and would not recommend him if he wasnt good.

gear wise for the new to the hobby what would you recommend John?
Im likeing the idea of sausages and maybe eventually salami if my sausages come out ok

@Bill999
Minimum requirements for sausage making.

Depends what you want to achieve.

if you want to process your own game animals into a final product you will need a mincer ( It makes economic sense too, even to buy "other" meats whole and mince them ) Probably something electric, and also use the buy once cry once principle.

I just bought a bunch of pork shoulders for $3.99 and minced it up .... also put one down as a bacon. So economically speaking your mincer can pay for itself over time by never having to buy shop mince again and just buying beef when its 10 a kg at Pac and Save, mincing it up and biff it in the freezer. Wallah! mince that used to cost you $16 a kilo is now only $10

A suasage press / stuffer makes a better job than a nozzle atttached to your mincer.
There is a variety of stuffers on the market. vertical or horizontal, water ( hydraulic) assisted
I have a little horizontal stuffer that holds about 2 kg and cost about $85 on TM

Sausage skins... you can get hog casings for a more natural product, or buy collagen casings as a standby / alternative.

Collagen casings will live forever in your cupboard, dont require any soaking, but dont hold up to cooking very well. They will split and curl like mad butcher sausies. They are very robust and probably a good begginner casing as they will take a lot of abuse while filling

For fancy smaller brekkie sausages you can go to sheeep casings .... these tend to be quite fragile so leave them until you have mastered other casings.

Salt.... you want non iodised salt ( actually cant remember why, but every thing I have ever read states non iodised )

Pink salt / prague #1 salt / curing salt ... totally different beast if making bacon or cured / smoked sausages you need this to help prevent getting ill from what you made. pays to read up about it a little first.
There is a #2 salt as well and that is for fermented salami and the likes. As above read up about it.

If you just wanted to give it a try first without a big outlay you could forgo the mincer and buy shop mince, mix it up to a recipe ( always use SOME kind of recipe ...so you can repeat what you did) ( or omit shit you didnt enjoy )
you could use a funnel to push meat into a casing or just go without casings and hand roll the meat like some eastern recipes do.

Where to get this stuff from.
Dunninghams is a big supplier and there are others on the interweb, I get my stuff from Sausages by design.

Nowadays you can get everything you ever wanted off the suppliers, skins , mixes, et all but then ..... you can buy good sausages from the shop too.
I prefer to buy the minimum I need and make the rest.

So my minimum is

Electric mincer with enough grunt to do the job without having to wear earmuffs

Horizontal stuffer with 2 kg capacity

Hog skin 32 mm casings

2 big low plastic bins of about 10 to 15 liter capacity to hold raw product at each end of mincer.

A couple of 25mm dowel rods to hang finished sausages on for a few hrs while they bloom / dry.

thats gold mate

I hear a lot about sausage filler, do you use it? is this the finer mince that you run thru the mincer again or is it some kind of grain product?

Originally Posted by Bill999

thats gold mate

I hear a lot about sausage filler, do you use it? is this the finer mince that you run thru the mincer again or is it some kind of grain product?

I never used to, but the result was a really dense sausage and very "meaty". I use a combination of things and it has evolved a bit over time. Breadcrumbs are a good standby filler, potato starch flour is another or porridge ground down fine. Or a bit of milk powder, these things all help to hold in the moisture and aid to combine the meats, and hold it all together.
What I use now is dried breadcrumbs and a little milk powder .... its in the recipe I posted on P1

Nothing here is set in stone, change it, add to it, remove stuff. Just keep the basics the same
Meat, salt, water, casings.
Mixing it all together is paramount to bring out the stuff that makes it stick together (actomyocin).

here is a link to some good info http://sausageswest.com/sausage-maki...iques/#Binding

boys ,if you can get hold of canada goose breasts it makes fine sausages and even finer salamai.add a little paradise duck too for variety -a little pork fat plumps em out a bit and adds to the juiciness

A productive wet windy day yesterday turning the boar my daughter shot and a smaller one shot by her BIL into sausages.

I killed a mutton to go with the pork. We spent most of the day turning out five different flavours.

@planenutz this ones for you...my family are all either celiac/dairy free/gluten intolerant Im the only one who isnt.

unlike John we use NO fillers at all and actually LIKE big meaty sausage...eat two and you are full.

our recipe is as follows

2lb meat

1 tblspn salt

1teaspn pepper

1teaspn paprika


a little cider vinegar...enough to get dry ingrediants mushy.


1 tblspn brown sugar


1tblspn herbs....we use mixed herbs an tuscan seasoning


1 tblspn corn flour


1tblspn garlic


20% pork fat by weight...we used belly /flap this time around as had killed a very fat pig and had heaps of trimmings.


oh and we added fennel from the garden...about a 1/2 cup full for 30lb meat we ended up with 2x 15ltr buckets full of bangers.

We dont use fillers either just herbs and spices and hog casings.

Thanks @Micky_Duck

That looks bloody good. We have a carcass hanging in the chiller right now so I can feel a bit of an opportunity coming on to give this a go. Much appreciated mate.

Cheers.

im glad to see this back up the list

would be nice to see value added cuts in my freezer rather than lumps

I'll happily resurrect this thread. @johnd what's your process for the fermented salami?

I've looked up a few recipes - the gist of it is a bit of salt (3% weight) and acidity (wine) and then whatever ingredients you want to add flavour. Hang overnight at room temp then in your fridge (or somewhere cold-ish) for 10 weeks and you're in business. Assuming no black mould or anything weird starts to happen, should be OK?

What say you?

Unless you have access to a stable medium temp environment its too hot to do it at the moment. Autumn would be a good time to start some off.
Bactoferm ( the starter culture ) wont work over 27'C
For those of us that just " hang it in the shed" its just going to spoil untill the weather turns a bit cooler.
I will set to and right up my recipe tommorow.
I wouldnt just throw a bit of salt and wine into the meat and see what happens, fridges tend to be too cool to let the ingredientss do their job.

Anyone got any experience with Dunningham's sausage products? A little bit confusing on their website as to which are pre-mixes of spice/preservative concentrates & meal or just separate non-mixed quantity bags. Recommendations for best products of thier's to go with some Veni or wild pork would be appreciated?