First Real Foray Into Sausage w/ qview

[solaryellow]

I hate to tell you all but you are getting completely screwed at the grocery store. OMG is this stuff fawking awesome!

Last night while waiting for the chuck roasts to get done on the UDS I decided to grind up some pork butt. After grinding it up I added the seasonings and then dumped the fresh sausage into ziplocs bag to store overnight. In hindsight, I should have stuffed it into the casings right then and there but you live and learn. We did fry up some patties before stuffing it this afternoon and all 4 came out tasting incredible. The breakfast and chorizo are spot on but the italian and bratwurst need some very minor tweaks. Both the italian and bratwurst are still better than anything I have ever bought at a store including butcher shops.

So here come the pics:

Bratwurst being stuffed into natural hog casings.

My linking technique sucks but I vow to improve upon it. As you can see my links are various sizes.

Chorizo waiting its turn to go for a ride in the stuffer.

Chorizo packed into the stuffer.

Bratwurst

Italian (I had a blow out while linking the italian. I stuffed them a little too hard.)

Chorizo

I did not stuff the breakfast into casings as we will use that for patties, loose in omelets, etc. I am thrilled with how this turned out and for all my preparation and nervousness, it was very very simple to do. Now to move on to other ground meats.

Thanks to Bob, Jerry, and Dan for getting me on the right path a few months back. I am very eager to see what else I can turn out.

 

[beer-b-q]

They look awesome, care to share your recipes...

I wouldn't worry about the Italian Blowout, around here we eat our mistakes...

 

[pops6927]

Great looking sausages! Blowouts happen, you can leave it like that or strip the meat out of that section of casing, toss back into the stuffer and stuff it again (I wait until I'm done stuffing all of it and collect the blowouts into a pile then toss it back in one time). It all eats one way or another! Great job!

 

[solaryellow]

To be completely honest with you, I am following Rytek's recipes to the letter to establish a baseline and am going to tweak from there.

For the italian I went with more of a medium heat and used 1/2 the red pepper he calls for (for hot italian). That is about right for me but the italian flavor is a bit diminished from what I like so I will probably up the amount of dry ingredients next time. It still tastes great.

I am not sure what I am going to different with the bratwurst. The flavor is good but like the italian it is a bit shy of what I was hoping for so I may add a bit more of the dry ingredients next go round. Like the itialian, it is much better than Johnsonville or the lesser crap you pay $5/lbs for at the grocery store. I also used straight Boston Butt for all of the sausages and Rytek calls for veal and pork with his brat recipe. Veal is hard to locate around me so I may try to get the meat ratio right before tweaking the spices.

For the breakfast sausage I may add more ground red pepper next go-round. Mrs. Solaryellow prefers what we made to Neeses' which is saying a lot. She also wants me to make some more for her to use in her incredible sausage corn bread stuffing for Thanksgiving.

The chorizo was a perfect blend for me. It was nice and spicy without being overwhelmingly hot. I stopped caring about hot when I got out of college and don't feel the need to burn the hell out of my mouth to prove anything but I still like spicy. Great flavor and I highly recommend it. I already know Mrs. Solaryellow will be making us chorizo omelettes tomorrow morning and can't wait.

 

[solaryellow]

I think this blow out is destined for spaghetti sauce.

 

[got14u]

great lookin sausage for the first time...wish mine looked that good.

 

[desertlites]

very very nice Joel-thats some good looking sausage!!! not only U know whats in it but it sure tastes ALOT better huh?glad to have another sausagemaker aboard-points to ya.

 

[solaryellow]

It is incredible Bob. Thanks again for all the info along the way. I am sure it was a PITA to answer some of my repetitive questions but from my end it was well worth it and you were a great help.

When I was in high school I had a part time job at a meat packing plant on the clean-up crew. On Friday's they would make italian sausage and the guys who made it would leave about a pound of it in the hopper for us cleaning up. One of the machines we cleaned up would get hot enough to fry it on so we would and it was incredible. I am trying to recapture that flavor and vow to get there.

And yes, it tastes so much better than what I can buy. My little universe keeps expanding at astronomical proportions thanks to this place.

 

[mballi3011]

Well joel that looks like some very yummy and really good sausage you have made there. I too will soon start aking it myself but I think I'm gonna have to wait on the fat guy in the red suit. You know the grandkids need to buy grampie something. You have made all the first sausages I want to make too.

 

[rod guy]

Looks awesome, I'd be ccoking up the blowout!!

 

[pineywoods]

Looks like a great job

It not only tastes better, is cheaper, but its also fun making it

 

[DanMcG]

Nice lookin sausages Solar!

 

[solaryellow]

The chorizo omelettes this morning were incredible. Farewell grocery stores!

 

[bmudd14474]

Great job there.

 

[rivet]

I'm with you Mark, but I've been waiting for that fat guy for 2 years now and he ain't been even close to here, so I'm thinking about just going out and getting one for myself. Any thoughts or recommendations?

Great looking sausage there Solar.

 

[solaryellow]

I got the grinder and stuffer from Northern Tool for about $180 out the door. To me, that was a cheap enough entry point in case I didn't enjoy the process.

Thanks for the compliment!

 

[travcoman45]

Nice lookin sausage! Yup, homemade is so much better then the junk ya buy in the store!