Ready to Make Sausage!
 

I've got a grinder (KA attachment), a 5# vertical stuffer, and some random casings showing up tomorrow. I even bought a better knife.

I can't wait. I think I'll be cutting a boston butt, freezing it, adding spices, grinding it (maybe twice, dunno yet), then stuffing in various casings.

I will probably split the meat into a traditional brat recipe and an Italian sausage recipe.

I'll take pictures. It will undoubtedly be a disaster.

Thanks you f-ers for getting me into this. I place most of the blame on the upcoming carnage on this HBT thread.

Don't actually freeze the meat. You only want it to start to get a little crunchy.

You'll want the meat semi-frozen. If you freeze it, let it thaw about half way.

A lot like brewing your first batch of beer, it will probably be the best you've ever tasted, but maybe a little different than you expected until you tweak it to your taste.

Remember, too that sausage needs some fat, so don't trim the fat off of that puppy.

Moose

(nodding in agreement)... don't freeze it.

Also.. with the KA attachment, I've found it is a lot easier to run a butt through it if you cube the pork up into pretty small cubes (maybe 1 inch cubes).

For italian... andouille... even breakfast sausage, I just run the butt through the larger cutter once. That seems like a good enough grind.

Thanks guys. I'm hoping my casings are on my doorstep right now.

I'm lucky, I actually have two grocery stores within a mile of my house that carry casings.

That said... my Instacure 1 and instacure 2 are being delivered to my doorstep tomorrow morning!!

I tried my local Publix (grocery) and no luck. I'll keep asking around, but my casings did show up today!

I also got some Mortons Tender Quick, which is 0.5% Sodium Nitrite, and 0.5% Sodium Nitrate. I'm not sure I'll even mess with this as I'm going to refrigerate my stuff, but I bought it for a possible pepperoni or something. Yea, I've no idea what I'm doing but I can tell you it will be fun, and messy.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/...um/casings.JPG

Get the book Charcuterie and read it

(nodding in agreement again).

Dataz is wise in the ways of sausage. Adhere to his advice.

Got that book for xmas and its tremendous... hence the instacure 1 and instacure 2 coming tomorrow. Five lbs of each.

5 lbs each? Good lord man! Plan on making a lot of sausages? I think you should send me some.