Making Smoked Sausage

 

Today (Saturday) was our first time to try making sausage! It took us forever, but I was surprised at how easy it was to do. 

Last year, my husband had asked what I wanted for Christmas. I couldn't think of anything I really wanted, so I just tried to think of things we could possibly use around the house. In my search, I found a grinder/meal/sausage making kit for my KitchenAid mixer. I got it for Christmas, but it has been sitting on the shelf until today.

Over the last few months we have been gathering things we knew we needed to make sausage. We have also spent hours researching the process. We finally gathered the supplies we needed and found a weekend day free enough for us to try our hand at it. We recorded the whole process. You can find the full video here on my YouTube channel, My Modern Homestead.

Basically, to make sausage, you begin with your desired amount of meat and sausage. There is a bit of science behind that. We determined that we would use 15 pounds of meat with 3 pounds of added fat. This first time, we used our own meat plus some we bought. We also bought sixty pounds of fat that we separated into three pound portions for future projects. 

We kept that meat as cold as we could and ground it with a coarse grind plate and then a fine grind plate. Those came with the kit.

Next, we placed all the meat along with the spices, cure, and water into our 20 pound meat mixer from LEM. We did our best to mix it well without over mixing. That step is in the video, but unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture.

The next part was a little tricky. We had natural hog casings soaking in some water. I had to figure out how to separate one and get it loaded onto the stuffing tube. I eventually got it done, and we began stuffing the sausage. Both the grinding and the stuffing took forever with the equipment we were using, but after 10,162 hours, we got done!

Then we placed the sausage into the smoke house for a cold smoke. The house doesn't get hot enough to cook the sausage through. 

We then took the sausage down and bagged it up four links to a bag. The bags were placed in the freezer until we are ready to cook the links for a meal.

We ended up with fourteen bags.

Before we make more, we are going to invest in a bigger, heavier duty grinder and a different stuffer. What we used would be fine for a really small batch, but it just wasn't practical for the amounts we will be doing. I am now excited to try it again! We have our ingredients ready for our next batches but we will wait for our new equipment.

Do any of you make your own sausage? My husband wanted to make a sausage he could smoke and that could just hang in the pantry similar to how a salted country ham hangs, but he couldn't find any definitive information on that. Perhaps someone out there can offer him some wisdom and advice on the subject.

What have you been up to in your corner of the world? I would love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a comment down below.

I hope you enjoyed following along with us! I tried to include as much of the process as I could without making the post and video too long for you.

This is the information for the company from which I ordered our mixes. They have much more than spice mixes, though! Just call them to request a free catalog.

Home Butchering Supplies, LLC
715-623-0055

Love you all!

Until we meet again, may you be blessed! ❤️