Stick a Fork In Me...

[Gonna Smoke]

...I'm DONE...hooked that is... Today I stuffed my 1st ever sausage and I'm hooked!! While the aesthetics leave a lot to be desired, I'm pleased with the outcome. I will continue to work on the appearance, but behold...

Only 2 blowouts. These are some casings my meat market manager friend sells in his store. Not sure what size they are, it wasn't on the package, but they are natural hog casings by Oversea Casing. Salt packed and I've had them soaking for a couple of weeks, changing the water at least every other day. To this greenhorn, they were aggravating to get on the tube, but I managed.

Now for the sausage. In SC, fresh onion sausage is everywhere and made by many different people. Rhoten's Country Store in Lexington is considered by many as the birthplace of our style onion sausage.

South Carolina's Best Onion Sausage Recipe

Simply the best South Carolina onion sausage recipe, this homemade version comes from Chef Elliott of The War Mouth in Columbia.

destination-bbq.com

I searched on here for something similar, but only found Cajun green onion sausage, ours is made with yellow onions or sweet onions. So off to the interweb where I found THIS recipe. I had all the ingredients except the NFDM, hence the questions earlier, so this was it. Took out 2 1000g packs of ground pork to semi-thaw, gathered all the ingredients, and put it all together. Did a fry test before stuffing and I was satisfied with the flavor. Only the one pic of the stuffed sausage, sorry, I was just excited to see it all coming together and trying to get this all done.

Here's the recipe for those who don't like to click links...

Ingredients​

Metric – US Customary

• 500 g lean pork
• 400 g pork belly
• 100 g pork back fat
• 16 g kosher salt
• 3 g black pepper
• 1 g red pepper flakes optional
• 2 g minced garlic
• 5 g sugar
• 10 g dried onion flakes
• 100 g sauteed onions
• 100 g caramelized onions
• 100 g ice cold water
• 30 g nonfat dried milk high heat
• 29-32mm hog casings

I doubled this recipe. Thanks to all you enablers who have helped me and answered my questions. To those of you still on the fence, if I can do this, anyone can.

One more question, how do you guys get those nice, even links of fresh sausage?

 

[jcam222]

Looks great and I saved the post for this recipe. I love onion!

 

[Gonna Smoke]

I love onion!

Then you will like this recipe...

On the website, you have the ability to change between metric and US measures as well as changing the amount of meat so the recipe changes, too...

 

[02ebz06]

Congrats on a very nice outcome for your first try at it.
If you find out how to make the even links, let me know, I can't. Haha

 

[chopsaw]

Looks good to me Charles . Nice job bud .

how do you guys get those nice, even links of fresh sausage?

Comes with practice . Here's how I do it most times .
I leave some casing on the open end . Then I go through the length and just get an idea of where I want to twist , by pinching the spot . No twist .

I work the sausage towards the open end as I go along .
When you twist , Do every other one , and spin the same direction .
So twist 1 , 3 , 5 , that automatically makes 2 and 4 , and so on .
It gets easier as you do more .
Soak those casings per Joe's method .

 

[indaswamp]

Nicely done Charles! It gets easier....promise. Glad you took the plunge! Nothing beats homemade sausages.

 

[chopsaw]

Nicely done Charles! It gets easier....promise. Glad you took the plunge! Nothing beats homemade sausages.

I bet he's ready for his second batch , and these aren't even frozen yet ! It's so addicting .

 

[indaswamp]

Congrats on a very nice outcome for your first try at it.
If you find out how to make the even links, let me know, I can't. Haha

I use a large sheet pan to catch the stuffed links. I have small nick marks on one long side of the sheet pan every 6". I just squeeze the casing much link chop did above, on the nick marks, then twist....

 

[indaswamp]

I bet he's ready for his second batch , and these aren't even frozen yet ! It's so addicting .

No doubt! I have not made any sausages in a while....and now I'm having withdrawals! HA!

 

[Gonna Smoke]

Soak those casings per Joe's method .

That's my plan. I've read that sticky a few times and probably should've waited, but I was itching to try...

 

[smokerjim]

Looks really good

 

[912smoker]

Thise look nice Charles and congrats on getting started !
I want to but haven’t taken the plunge......yet

Keith

 

[mr_whipple]

That's awesome! Took me a bit to finally make the jump too. So very glad that turned out for you!!

 

[Gonna Smoke]

Thise look nice Charles and congrats on getting started !
I want to but haven’t taken the plunge......yet

Keith

Come on in, the water's fine...

 

[cptnding]

Looks great and I saved the post for this recipe. I love onion!

Nice job! Those look great to me!
Hope to give it a try myself in the not too distant future.

 

[Brokenhandle]

Come on in, the water's fine...

Just push him off the boat!

Ryan

 

[DougE]

Nicely done! Cleaning up the equipment is the worst part of sausage making for me.

 

[BGKYSmoker]

HA

Did you feel it?
I did a long way fork jab.

Nice sausage.

 

[SmokinEdge]

That looks real good Charles. Congratulations on getting your feet wet. It’s a fantastic rabbit hole to go through. As far as even links it’s just having a work top with some sort of measure on it. I like to link in 2’s mostly because it kills 2 birds with one stone and they won’t unravel. Just a simple measuring stick or marks along a mat will get you linking like a pro. Nice work Sir.

 

[Buckeyedude]

Bookmarked! Nice job sir! Ill take two with mustard and kraut please!