So last night was the maiden voyage for making sausage, never done it before. Had a new Cabela's grinder waiting to come along on the journey with me since Christmas. After some thought and consultation (thanks Nepas) I decided to start with a fresh breakfast sausage. Venison summer sausage and venison snack sticks will start as soon as my stuffer arrives next week, meat is defrosting as I type.
I used the basic recipe Nepas has, except I added a touch of brown sugar and tweaked the pepper a bit. I like this sausage, it's awesome, the family loved it too! Next time I mix up the seasonings I think I will back off the salt maybe 1/2 oz or so, and the sage about 1/4 oz or so. That or just use slightly less than the .5 oz per lb, say .45oz or .4oz. It's great now, and the wife had no complaints, but something to try next time to take a bit of the salt away. Also, I'm using rubbed sage as that is all I could get in the store. Is there a big difference between ground sage and rubbed sage as far as intensity of flavor?
Bottom line, I will NEVER be buying breakfast sausage again. This stuff is great, the process was enjoyable, and you know exactly what you have at the end of the day and what you don't have (artificial preservatives, things you can't pronounce, etc) in your sausage. This recipe is also a great starting point for other sausages. Already talking about a spicy version and Italian version as well. Perfect place for a beginner to cut teeth on making sausage, thanks again for the recipe Nepas!
Here is the modified Nepas recipe I used:
8oz Kosher Salt
2oz Sage (rubbed)
1.5oz Brown Sugar
1.25oz Black Pepper
.75oz White Pepper
Use .5oz per 1lb of meat
8.01lbs pork butt cubed and ready to go with the seasonings and new grinder. Also added some of the cap off the other butt I'm doing PP with this weekend.
First grind through the course plate, mixed seasonings into meat prior to grinding.
At this point, I stopped and did a fry test. I assumed if something was way off or not to my liking taste wise I could adjust the seasonings before the final grind and get a better incorporation. Not a darn thing wrong, I'm pretty excited at this point being my first time and all. Had the wife sample and she liked it too.
I actually liked the coarse grind for the sausage and she did to, so what I did was only run half of the coarse grind through the medium plate and then mixed together with the other half of coarse grind. Best of both worlds, when I pressed some out for another "quality control" fry test it was similar to JD sausage texture wise but with an occasional larger chunk of pork in it - perfect!
I had the sausage vac-packed and the tools and entire kitchen cleaned, the drink topped off, and my laurels resting proudly on the couch browsing SMF before realizing I never got any pics of the finished product, oops. Pulled one out of the freezer, each package is just over a pound, so we can eat it both mornings over a weekend.
I used the basic recipe Nepas has, except I added a touch of brown sugar and tweaked the pepper a bit. I like this sausage, it's awesome, the family loved it too! Next time I mix up the seasonings I think I will back off the salt maybe 1/2 oz or so, and the sage about 1/4 oz or so. That or just use slightly less than the .5 oz per lb, say .45oz or .4oz. It's great now, and the wife had no complaints, but something to try next time to take a bit of the salt away. Also, I'm using rubbed sage as that is all I could get in the store. Is there a big difference between ground sage and rubbed sage as far as intensity of flavor?
Bottom line, I will NEVER be buying breakfast sausage again. This stuff is great, the process was enjoyable, and you know exactly what you have at the end of the day and what you don't have (artificial preservatives, things you can't pronounce, etc) in your sausage. This recipe is also a great starting point for other sausages. Already talking about a spicy version and Italian version as well. Perfect place for a beginner to cut teeth on making sausage, thanks again for the recipe Nepas!
Here is the modified Nepas recipe I used:
8oz Kosher Salt
2oz Sage (rubbed)
1.5oz Brown Sugar
1.25oz Black Pepper
.75oz White Pepper
Use .5oz per 1lb of meat
8.01lbs pork butt cubed and ready to go with the seasonings and new grinder. Also added some of the cap off the other butt I'm doing PP with this weekend.
First grind through the course plate, mixed seasonings into meat prior to grinding.
At this point, I stopped and did a fry test. I assumed if something was way off or not to my liking taste wise I could adjust the seasonings before the final grind and get a better incorporation. Not a darn thing wrong, I'm pretty excited at this point being my first time and all. Had the wife sample and she liked it too.
I actually liked the coarse grind for the sausage and she did to, so what I did was only run half of the coarse grind through the medium plate and then mixed together with the other half of coarse grind. Best of both worlds, when I pressed some out for another "quality control" fry test it was similar to JD sausage texture wise but with an occasional larger chunk of pork in it - perfect!
I had the sausage vac-packed and the tools and entire kitchen cleaned, the drink topped off, and my laurels resting proudly on the couch browsing SMF before realizing I never got any pics of the finished product, oops. Pulled one out of the freezer, each package is just over a pound, so we can eat it both mornings over a weekend.
