First time making sausages!

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DumasDaddy

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2022
14
29
Have been working my way up to sausages and finally did it. :emoji_tada: I bought a grinder and made a small batch of snack sticks a couple months back to get a feel for the process. It went okay, but mistakes were made and lessons learned. The big ones: I didn't add enough water to the mix, and didn't keep things cold enough as I processed the meat. I took copious notes, watched a bunch of youtube videos, and read as much as I could before trying a batch of sausages.

Last week, I picked up some pork butts on sale ($0.88/lb!), put a plan together and went for it. Made 5lbs of brats, 5lbs of garlic sausage links and 6.5lbs of bulk garlic sausage. I used a Cabella's seasoning kit for the brats (added pink salt) and a basic blend for the garlic sausages with garlic, salt, black pepper and pink salt.

Process: cubed and chilled meat, double course grind, seasoned and mixed, stuffed links and rested in fridge overnight, smoked for a couple hours at low temp (160℉) on pellet smoker, portioned, vacuum sealed, poached with sous vide at 165℉ for 45 min to finish (155℉ internal temp), and finally cooled in ice bath before throwing everything in the freezer.

And of course I had to sample some! 😄 Nice and plump, satisfying snap, great taste with balanced flavors. While there are certainly things I can continue to tweak and improve, I'm very pleased with how everything turned out. Looking forward to continuing this hobby!





 
Wow! That is awesome! That is a ton of great work, Bravo!!!
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Thanks for all of the kind words. Sausage is funny in that there are so many different approaches and techniques, and much of it comes down to personal preference. It was tricky sorting through all the (sometimes contradictory) information out there to land on something that worked for me.

I shared a summary of my process above, but my notes are much more detailed 😅 I'm happy to share more of my learnings if that would be helpful for any folks are thinking about trying sausage making!
 
Congrats on your creation. They look awesome. I too had started down this rabbit hole of sausage making in January of this year. Started reading all that I could of different techniques and styles on how people make their sausages. I think the most important thing I did was take notes. I bought a journal and dedicated it to just sausage notes. Every recipe I made I wrote it in there along with the pros and cons of the final product. Toward the summer I stopped making sausages due to the hot weather. PITA trying to keep everything ice cold all the time. Now that the weather has changed and Mother Nature is providing her huge walk in freezer, (the outside), I have gotten back into the sausage production again. I busted out the Sausage Journal and was reviewing my info from past triumph and error. Some triumph, many errors!! Reviewing all the details it seemed like it just happened yesterday. Really glad I kept records, I noticed that my memory, which according to my wife, has never been the best, was helped greatly by this journal. Good luck with your new hobby. It looks like you are off to a great start.
 
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