www.sausagemaking.org

Hello everyone, My name is Michael and I am new to the forum. I am in the process of trying new recipes to make sausages. I just invested into a vacuum stuffer (Frey 60) and a vacuum sealer,so I need to come up with some products to help pay for the new equipment. BTW, I forgot to mention that I took over a mom and pops processing plant. I'm looking for some simple recipes for smoke sausage,hot sausage and boudin. Right now we are only processing what they call "Vietnamese Ham". The plant is only processing a few thousand pounds a month and we are only working 3 days a week. It is not enough hours for my employees. Any help would be appreciated.

Welcome. Lots of great recipes in the Sausage Recipes section on the site, sticky right at the top. If you haven't already I would suggest starting there.

How are you selling? If you have a small community, or a little store, get out and talk to people, see what they're interested in. Look at other producers in your area and see what kind of holes in the market there are. If you have a little store, engage your customers. Tell them you want their ideas, what they're looking for, get into a conversation with them. Finding recipes is all well and good, but if you're making something that your market is alien to, it's going to be a hell of an uphill battle. I starter making boudin on a request a couple years ago and my customers (Pacific NW USA) took a year to really start getting into it.

If you're a little plant, look into a local farmer's market. You may not make much money, but exposure is much more important here. Putting a friendly face to "That Meat Place" is invaluable. My FM booth didn't do much more then break even and put change in my pocket the first year, but it pushed people into my shop that never would have otherwise come here. If you can run it yourself as owner/operator, so much the better. People adore the personal touch.