Good Afternoon to my favorite forum!
It’s Tuesday and I’m sitting at my desk and figured now is as good as time as ever to post about my latest endeavor! When you’re passionate with this hobby you have to continue to push yourself to become the best home cook you can be. So after tons of research from the site and the purchase of some new equipment I decided to start making my own sausage! First I started by purchasing Stanley Marianski’s book Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages which I’ve read is a great book for rookies like myself. I also went out and purchased a Kitchener 5lb stuffer and #10 hand crank grinder from Northern Tool. I wanted the manual grinder for the time being; cheap, effective for small batches of meat, and doesn’t take up much room in the kitchen cabinet.
So here goes… made about 2.5 pounds of fresh Italian Sausage and 2.5 pounds of fresh Mexican Chorizo! I used the recipes from Marianski’s book, I can post late if people want. I opted for fresh sausage because I don’t have any Cure #1, nor do I have my smoker set up for cold smoking. Not to mention for my first try, why not keep it simple? Plus it’s starting to get hot in Florida and it would be difficult to keep the temps low enough to bring them up gradually. I’m going to do some test smokes with only a few briskets in the UDS to see how it’s done before I load it up with meat. I also want to buy an AMNPS for the future…
Anyway, I purchased a dual pack of butts from Sam’s and froze one of them. We all know what they look like and I don’t want to show you all how poorly I did butchering the bone out…that is tough work! I also went a local butcher here in town and he sold me some fresh hog casing (about 10lbs worth in length) for $1.00…score!
So here is about 5lbs of pork butt all cut up…I did my best to remove the sinew and stringy fat.
I did 2 grinds, first with the coarse plate…
Then added my spices…Italian on left, Chorizo on right
Then did a second grind with the fine plate…man this is a lot of work!
I also had a watchful eye from Ole’ Red…just in case I dropped some meat on the floor!
Then loaded up the stuffer with each perspective batch…time to stuff!
Stuffed! Italian on the left…Chorizo on the right!
Linked!
The close up shot!
For dinner, my wife and I sautéed some peppers and onions and grilled up a few of them…delicious!
And of course…I had help from my wonderful wife…for helping crank the stuffer, and allowing me to take over the kitchen all day on Sunday!
Now…what I learned:
Rip…
It’s Tuesday and I’m sitting at my desk and figured now is as good as time as ever to post about my latest endeavor! When you’re passionate with this hobby you have to continue to push yourself to become the best home cook you can be. So after tons of research from the site and the purchase of some new equipment I decided to start making my own sausage! First I started by purchasing Stanley Marianski’s book Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages which I’ve read is a great book for rookies like myself. I also went out and purchased a Kitchener 5lb stuffer and #10 hand crank grinder from Northern Tool. I wanted the manual grinder for the time being; cheap, effective for small batches of meat, and doesn’t take up much room in the kitchen cabinet.
So here goes… made about 2.5 pounds of fresh Italian Sausage and 2.5 pounds of fresh Mexican Chorizo! I used the recipes from Marianski’s book, I can post late if people want. I opted for fresh sausage because I don’t have any Cure #1, nor do I have my smoker set up for cold smoking. Not to mention for my first try, why not keep it simple? Plus it’s starting to get hot in Florida and it would be difficult to keep the temps low enough to bring them up gradually. I’m going to do some test smokes with only a few briskets in the UDS to see how it’s done before I load it up with meat. I also want to buy an AMNPS for the future…
Anyway, I purchased a dual pack of butts from Sam’s and froze one of them. We all know what they look like and I don’t want to show you all how poorly I did butchering the bone out…that is tough work! I also went a local butcher here in town and he sold me some fresh hog casing (about 10lbs worth in length) for $1.00…score!
So here is about 5lbs of pork butt all cut up…I did my best to remove the sinew and stringy fat.
I did 2 grinds, first with the coarse plate…
Then added my spices…Italian on left, Chorizo on right
Then did a second grind with the fine plate…man this is a lot of work!
I also had a watchful eye from Ole’ Red…just in case I dropped some meat on the floor!
Then loaded up the stuffer with each perspective batch…time to stuff!
Stuffed! Italian on the left…Chorizo on the right!
Linked!
The close up shot!
For dinner, my wife and I sautéed some peppers and onions and grilled up a few of them…delicious!
And of course…I had help from my wonderful wife…for helping crank the stuffer, and allowing me to take over the kitchen all day on Sunday!
Now…what I learned:
- Making sausage is a time consuming task! The guys here on the forum make it look SO easy as they have been practicing this craft for quite some time. Hands off to you all! (Even Nepas for pulling my chain about Zombie Blood, Snipe, Black Angus, Charcoal sausages…hahaha!)
- It is easier to go to the store and buy some premade…but in all honestly, I want to know what’s going into my food. Plus, what fun is that!!!
- Hand grinders are also a lot of work! But it’s the way it was done for ages so I thought it would be cool to do it that way as well…BUT, eventually I will buy an electric one!
- Nothing beats a hard day of cooking vs. sitting on the couch…quite rewarding.
- Finally...I will be doing this again
Rip…