Breakfast sausage

[reinman]

Pork shoulders were on sale for 99 cents, so I thought it was time for some breakfast sausage. I hate paying $2 or $3 a pound when it can be made for 99 cents.

I bought 3 shoulders, and then bought about 4 pounds of fatty trim since the shoulders would be plenty lean.



22 pounds ground up and ready for some salt, pepper, and sage.



Since I like links better then patties I run it through the stuffer.



I then cut into links and put them on a cookie sheet to freeze. After that I put the links in smaller packages. Whenever I want sausage for breakfast, I just pull out as many links as I'll need. I've found I'll use more this way, since I always hated taking out a pound if it was just me. Now I can take out just what I need for each meal.

 

[mulepackin]

Good looking stuff. Sure to be better than what you can buy.

 

[nater3]

Are those natural or collagen casings?

 

[pineywoods]

Looks good nice job

 

[reinman]

I use collegen casings for my breakfast sausage. They are the 21 mm size.

The last time I did links I put the whole strand in my roaster filled with water. I brought them up to 160 and then cut them into links and froze them. I figured they would be like the brown and serve links you buy. But this time I decided to just freeze them raw, and make sure I fry them a little longer when I fix them.

 

[desertlites]

good looking sausage-gotta love a good breakfast-and ya or sheep caseing-which hard to find here.

 

[pops6927]

You can order sheep casings from Syracuse Casings:

http://www.makincasing.com/mm5/merch...ategory_Code=2

Pops §§

 

[reinman]

I used sheep casings a couple times, though not with breakfast sausage. They were a bit too small for what I wanted. I was looking for something bigger then a hot dog and smaller then a brat. They did have some larger sheep casings, but you had to buy a larger quanity and I didn't really want to do that. So then I tried smaller hog casings. Again these cost a bit more then the normal hog casings, but I liked the size better, and didn't have to buy quite as many.

I was looking for something in between the normal hog casing that is about 30 mm, and the sheep casing that is about 21 or 22mm. The smaller hog casing is about 24 to 26mm.

Here is where I get my casings, spices, and other supplies. Fortunately they are local for me so I can just stop in. Not sure how far they will ship.

http://www.friscospices.com/

 

[afreetrapper]

About once a month Food 4 Less puts there pork butts,shoulder steak and country style pork on sale .99 a lb. and I stock up. I bought a case of sausage seasoning like we used when I was on the parole cutting meat back in the day and before the place went under. We would add some extra things to give our own signature. This is 5 lbs. cooked up a little with fried potatoes for lunch haven't had this sausage in a few years good stuff.

 

[cajunsmoke13]

nice job Reiman. Looks great.

 

[afreetrapper]

where did you find the small stainless steel tube for the LEM I have that stuffer and would like to find a tube like that. I have LEm's catalog dont recall seeing it there.Ive also looked in the catalogs for Butcher/packer, sausagemaker, midwestern research and p&s seasonings

 

[pignit]

Shweeeeet!

 

[fire it up]

Looks great trapper! Really nice, would love to make my own breakfast sausages.
Points for the beautiful post. Thanks for sharing.

 

[reinman]

You'd probably need a plumbing catalog. LOL

That is a water line. At least I think that was what it is, a friend made it for me. We had to do some modification to make it work.

There is a bulge and a flat ring on the end of the tube.



We ended up needing two washers, one to hold the tube on when the plastic ring was tightened up, and another washer on the inside so the tube wouldn't go in.



It's small enough I can use 18 mm casings with no problems. With cured meat I let it sit out on the table overnight so the meat is not as cold. Cold meat has a hard time going through such a small tube.

 

[afreetrapper]

I like that my landlord owns a hardware store he has all that. I was thinking of a way to make one of some sheet copper I have but figured all the salts in the sausage would react.

 

[reinman]

At 3/8 inch it works well on those 18mm casings for slim jims, and also works well with sheep casings. Even the smallest plastic tube from LEM tapered and was too big to get very much of the 21 mm casing on them.

Fresh breakfast sausage is tougher to stuff, because you can't let it sit and out get warm. At least the cured stuff can be at room temp where it stuffs easy.

 

[afreetrapper]

I have the LEM 5lb stuffer I was stuffing with my enterprise grinder with a stuffing plate and tube. The LEM came with the plastic tubes as long as they work I don't want to invest in the stainless set (yet) which happens to have the 3/8" tube. I use the small sheep casing and that the trouble I'm having to hard to get the casing started and cant get very much casing on. I grind my meat partially frozen it helps keep it somewhat firm while stuffing firm.

 

[afreetrapper]

Anyone had any experience with both fresh and dried blood. Impossible to get fresh blood in these parts. Dried blood is available. Have someone asking e to make blood sausage don't want to make it with dried blood if the result wont be as good a quality it would with fresh blood.

 

[reinman]

I had a problem getting the sheep casings on the plastic LEM tube too, but didn't have that problem with the one we made.

Since then I've switched to the smaller hog casings. For me the sheep were too small and the hog at 30 to 32 were too big. I found I could get smaller hog, averaging 24 to 26, and that was just right for my brats.

I might go back to sheep for slim jims or other sticks instead of the man made 18mm mahogany.

 

[afreetrapper]

I'm going to try making a tube like yours. I would like to stick to the 20-22mm sheep casing for my breakfast sausage I link them at 3 inches long I kinda like that size.