Finally getting some time to get back into the sausage game again, and decided to kick it off with a three all-pork sausage day. I ground up meats yesterday and stuffed today. First on the menu was some breakfast links. I've been making breakfast sausage for years now but have never actually linked it up. I decided to give the sheeps another whirl since I have a few more sessions under my belt now with hogs to strengthen my techniques, and it paid off big. Whereas the last time I dealt with sheep casings I swore I'd never use them again, this time it went pretty smooth; there were no unexpected issues with blowouts or tangles etc. Maybe it's the beer talking but they were almost a pleasure (even the smell seemed not as bad). They stuffed just right; I only wish I'd pulled out more because I pulled out around 20ft for 5lbs and needed 30. The 22-24mm sheeps are maybe a bit large compared to Johnsonville breakfast sausages.
All linked up:
Next up is a version of Shooter Rick's Attitude Brats; I'm calling them Attitude SummerHook Brats since I added a cup of RedHook SummerHook in place of the water, and NFDM for the soy concentrate.
Attitude Summer Brat Hooks all linked up:
Finally, this next sausage is inspired by wutang's 2010 post "Garlic + Beer = Sausage". I excluded the bacon and included a cup of RedHook ESB.
Garlic ESB Brats all linked up (with the only blowout of the day, a tiny pinhole in that upper link):
They are currently sittin in the fridge melding up; taste test tomorrow evening (I'm being awful patient here; my garage fridge smells amazing).
I learned a couple things today. Linking has always eluded me for some dumb reason.. probably because I've seen the youtube videos of people slingin and twirlin and dancing around sausages to link them up. None of that has worked for me. But then I just read a comment on here about "link one, skip one, link one, skip one" and it just clicked and I used that today and it was so damn simple I about cried.
The second thing was that an understuffed sausage can be fixed by just pinching off a wider space between links and massaging the meat (lol) so that a properly stuffed link forms, and then you just twirl it a couple more times than normal to pick up the slack. Again, so simple I almost had tears. It's better to have an understuffed link than an overstuffed because it's a lot harder to fix an overstuffed link.
Plated shots and taste test forthcoming tomorrow evening!
All linked up:
Next up is a version of Shooter Rick's Attitude Brats; I'm calling them Attitude SummerHook Brats since I added a cup of RedHook SummerHook in place of the water, and NFDM for the soy concentrate.
Attitude Summer Brat Hooks all linked up:
Finally, this next sausage is inspired by wutang's 2010 post "Garlic + Beer = Sausage". I excluded the bacon and included a cup of RedHook ESB.
Garlic ESB Brats all linked up (with the only blowout of the day, a tiny pinhole in that upper link):
They are currently sittin in the fridge melding up; taste test tomorrow evening (I'm being awful patient here; my garage fridge smells amazing).
I learned a couple things today. Linking has always eluded me for some dumb reason.. probably because I've seen the youtube videos of people slingin and twirlin and dancing around sausages to link them up. None of that has worked for me. But then I just read a comment on here about "link one, skip one, link one, skip one" and it just clicked and I used that today and it was so damn simple I about cried.
The second thing was that an understuffed sausage can be fixed by just pinching off a wider space between links and massaging the meat (lol) so that a properly stuffed link forms, and then you just twirl it a couple more times than normal to pick up the slack. Again, so simple I almost had tears. It's better to have an understuffed link than an overstuffed because it's a lot harder to fix an overstuffed link.
Plated shots and taste test forthcoming tomorrow evening!
