Making sausage

[purplewg]

I am interested in making my own sausage from pork and venison. I see these kits out there that come with all the stuff to do it including the grinder.

Does anyone have other suggestions or recommendations for good kits? Thanks

[kawalekm]

I've made my own sausage; with a cheapo #10 grinder clone made in China. It only cost 15$. I don't think though that you need a kit to make sausage. Extra parts like grinding plates and sausage horns are expensive through. Things like spices are available in local stores, and the only thing that I had difficultly finding was sausage casings. All our local chain groceries didn't have it and even the meat counter butcher didn't know if it could be special ordered. Finally, I stopped into a local Mexican market where I noticed they had freshly made sausage hanging. I had a Mexican friend write me a note in Spanish saying that I wanted to buy some casings to make sausage. After handing the note to the meat counter guy he went to his walk-in frig, pulled out some casings, and sold it to me for a buck.

Wash the casings, alot, they are very full of salt! When you make your sausage, make sure you remove 100% of the deer fat. If you don't, you'll be sorry! Use a really fatty piece of pork so the sausage won't be dry.

My two favorate recipes are Polish Kielbas and spicy Italian sausage. Here are my recipes that I got out of "Great Sausage Recipes" by Rytek Kutas

Kielbas
5 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2-3 finely ground garlic cloves
1 tbsp black pepper
1-11/2 tsp marjoram
1pint of icewater
10 lbs meat

Spicy Italian sausage
5tbsp salt
1tbsp fennel seed (cracked)
2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp caraway seed
1 tbsp coriander
10 lbs meat

I got the best results grinding the meat and spices together first, refrigerating for a day, then do the stuffing. Two people are better than one when forming the sausage. One can feed the grinder and turn the crank while the other controls the casing being filled. Tie off the end with clean COTTON string. As you fill the sausages give each completed sausage a few turns clockwise, then the next sausage turned counterclockwise. The opposing turns for each link keeps the whole thing unravelling. I've never smoked anything. I've just frozen my sausage and eaten it that way.