Have been working my way up to sausages and finally did it. 
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!
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!
I'm happy to share more of my learnings if that would be helpful for any folks are thinking about trying sausage making!
