Skin on or off

[Carl]

Hi, I have a question before I make my first batch of sausage. Do you leave the skin on the meat or take it off?
Carl

[Oddley]

Carl that is your choice some people mince it with the meat and some don't. I personally don't.

[aris]

If the meat (and skin) is very fresh and soft - then it is usually OK - but depends on your own taste. You will also need a pretty heavy duty mincer to mince skin. When I get mince from my butcher he leaves the skin on - but he has a huge mincer.

[Carl]

Thanks for the advice I'll take it off. Fingers crossed here goes first batch coming up.

[Spuddy]

Don't worry about crossing your fingers, I'm sure they'll turn out fine.
On the subject of fingers though; remember to keep them well away from the mincer screwfeeder.

[sausagemaker]

Hi Carl

The secret to the use of skin is to remove it from the meat & cook in boiling water for about 30 minutes.
You can then mince it very easily & mix it in.
The resultant stock can also be used but do cool this first.
When you use skin this way it helps the sausage set up as it releases the natural gelatine.

Hope this helps

regards
sausagemaker

[Carl]

Hi, Well batch one can only be called a success apart from over stuffing the casing that split when I tried to link them, this was rectified and the sausage left in the fridge over night. Breakfast time was a homemade sausage sandwich, I was amazed how good they looked both raw and cooked as good as any shop bought but the taste was great. Thank you all for your advice and support.

Carl

[Haggis]

Hi
Hope this is the right place for this question! I have been reading all the advice on the forum and its been fantastic. However I have just minced my pork and its currently chilling. I left the rind on. (Is this the same as the skin?) Is this a bad thing? Will it make my sausages useless?

First time at this and have still got a lot to learn.

cheers
Paul

[Spuddy]

Hi Haggis, welcome to the forum.
The rind is the skin yes.
If you minced it finely then you should be OK although you'll notice the texture may not be quite right definitely NOT useless though.
If you minced it more coarsely then you'll probably end up with some fairly chewy bits in the sausages unless you cook them very slowly say in a casserole or cassoulet.

[aris]

It also depends on how fresh your meat is. The fresher the pork, the softer the skin. If the pork has been hanging for a while, the skin goes hard - and less palatable in sausages.

[TJ Buffalo]

Carl
Usually when I run into skin I take it off the shoulder very carefully and then mark and freeze it. When I use it in sausage (usually in half-pound lots, for texture) I cook the skin for 20 minutes or so, then let it cool before I grind it through a fine plate. I just used a half-pound in some potato sausage today, and it came out fairly good. It's all personal taste.

[fatnhappy]

I always cut it off and feed it to the dog, but since you guys all seem to advocate cooking and grinding it I might just try it in a small batch.

[TobyB]

Such a waste to mince the skin though. I always use mine to make pork scratchings (ie crackling). Half for me (with salt on) and half for the dogs (without the salt).

Cut skin off pig. I just cut it into big oblongs no need to score it.
wipe with a little oil (I use olive but any (cooking) oil will do)
Sprinkle my portions with a little Maldon sea salt.
Cook the skin in a hot oven (200-220 degrees C) until it bubbles.
Chop up (more of a shatter really) and eat hot or cold. Excellent snack with a glass of wine and not too unhealthy as most of the fat goes into the sausage so it's nearly pure skin!

Exception to this is, I believe, saveloys (which I confess to never having made) but I understand that the minced skin and gelatine water (ie the stock from cooking the skin) is an essential part of the recipe.

[welsh wizard]

Well you learn something every day - I tend to remove the rind and feed it to the dogs because I did not think that with such a thin sliver of fat on the underside of the rind it would crackle too well.

Oh well a few more pounds soon to go on the ever expanding waist line!

[Paul Kribs]

I have found that to get good crackling you need to leave at least 1/8" of fat on the skin and then do as Toby says. I believe they even sell small trays of it in Morrisons for making crackling. Personally, I take all the fat off the skin, you can almost see right through it, I freeze the fat and use it for sausage making and discard the skin. I have wondered if it would be worth boiling the skin to obtain a reduced stock, and would it set to a gellatenous consistency when cold for use in pork pies??

Regards, Paul Kribs