Looking to start playing with sausage.

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Be sure to put a casing on that sausage before you have that group sausage play session.  
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All seriousness, his royal highness, Alton Brown, says trichinosis is no longer an issue with today's pork.  Trichinosis is a parasite which has been all but eradicated in the US.  Botulism is still an issue and smoked sausage must be cured first and IMO, cooked to over 156 F.
 
All right, this is a sausage smoking forum, can we please have some Anthony Wiener jokes?
 
Be sure to put a casing on that sausage before you have that group sausage play session.  
sausage.gif


All seriousness, his royal highness, Alton Brown, says trichinosis is no longer an issue with today's pork.  Trichinosis is a parasite which has been all but eradicated in the US.  Botulism is still an issue and smoked sausage must be cured first and IMO, cooked to over 156 F.
According to my research there has not been a case of trichinosis in the US since @ 1953. However this applies to domestic pork only. Meat from wild game suck as ferrel pig, wild boar or even venison can carry trichinosis. Cooking to 156 F, still works for me.
 
 
I have the 1 hp. Cabela's grinder and am very happy with it.  I know I'd be happier with the 1¾ hp, but my wife wouldn't (I store it on the kitchen counter, lol!).  Regardless, they emulate a full size grinder well.

I have a Northern Tool 15 lb. stuffer that is more than reasonable, has great metal gears and built like a truck.  It serves me well for what I produce for myself and family.  The comparison to the 5 lb. is obvious and my batches are routinely 6 - 12 lbs at a time, so the 5 lb. would not have suited me.

I don't have a mixer, but intentionally purchased the 1 hp. Cabela's grinder for that reason - it can drive the 40 lb. mixer so I don't have to, lol!  At present I don't produce that much to find it necessary, I only mix up to 6 - 12 lb. batches of any one individual product at a time and don't have the time to do more (work 6+ days a week).  However, retirement is coming in a few years and hopefully my needs will expand as my grandkids get older (getting them hooked on grandpa's hobby as well as our kids, lol!),

I  do use a smokehouse; check out my thread at the bottom on how to build one.  It's a great tool unto itself!

Practically all pork is frozen before it is sold (that'd called 'certified pork', to eliminate the trich).   This is not necessarily a 'hard freeze' to 20° below; more like a 'firm freeze' to 29° - 30° above for 30 days, enough to destroy the trich but not enough to destroy the pork cells, allowing re-freezing with no cell destruction.  Plus it allows transportation with low bacteria counts much easier too.  (I've unwrapped many a hundreds of thousands of pounds of butts, shoulders and loins in a semi-frosted state prior to cutting and boning, lol!).  
 
Washington's smokehouse.  I feel humbled by my meager facilities.

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Q-View: George Washington's smokehouse

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I have the Dakotah water stuffer, it says it will hold 9 pounds of meat, although for me about 5 to 7 seems more realistic. It uses water presure form you household water supply for the pushing force, All that is needed is approx. 20 PSI.

I didn't like the idea of hokking up water hoses and such, so I converted mine over to using a C0-2  cannister for the presure. It m,akes for a nice 1 person job, there is no watery mess from leaky water hoses, and there is also no leakage of meat around the seal, it works perfectly.

I make my beef stick (pepperoni & Link breakfast sausage) I will soon be branching out and stuffing Bratwurst soon.

Check it out, its a really neet stuffer.

Rich
 
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