Adventures of a sausage virgin

[awsaws]

Last week I had my new mincer/sausage making machine delivered. It attaches to my Kenwood Chef and today the skins and herbs I ordered turned up. As I was all excited to try this new kit I went to waitrows and bought a shoulder of pork (3lb), some belly pork (1.5lb) and a bag of granny smiths. So my gf & I set about making some sausages.
We put the hog casings into soak in warm water, cut the meat up into pieces, threw a glass of red wine on it and assembled the mincer (with the medium cutter). We fed the meat into the mincer and were amazed that it didn't need pushing with the plunger it just went threw itself. We then minced the apple, put some sage, pepper and bread crumbs on the minced meat and apple. When trying to mix it together I soon realised we'd made a mistake! Mixing such a large amount together is hard work, we should have mixed it together before we fed it into the mincer, then the mincer would have done the hard work for us. We then took the cutter out of the mincer and replace it with a tube, so it was now a sausage stuffer. We swilled the hog casings through with water (don't they look like condoms), fed them onto the tube and started feeding our sausage meat into the hopper. I tied a knot in the end of the skin and switched the machine on. Filling the sausage skins was quite easy until one of the skins split (I think I was being too rough with it). Once filled I tried to turn them into hands, like I've seen @ the butchers, this was partialy successful. Anyhow it was 11pm when we finished (so it took 3hrs) and we finally got to try the first sausages, which we cooked in the health grill. My first thought was that they were much more meaty than shop sausages and less fatty. I think I put in too much sage and I needed a little more fat. Also the apple almost disappeared, so I think this either needs to be cut fine and not minced next time, or minced on the course setting. But it was a fun few hours and as a first batch they were good. It'll be interesting to see how they bbq this w/e. Anyhow thanks for all your chatter on this forum, as it's this that gave me loads of ideas.

[Oddley]

Welcome to the forum awsaws

Thank you for your most graphic account, of a beginner sausage maker, It must bring back memories to all of us.

I too started with the kenwood chef, a great machine. Too this day I like the middle plate for the mincer attachment. It does take a while at first to make sausages, But you now have the satisfaction of boldly asserting to family and friends when serving a sausage sandwhich that you made the sausages.

I have found this causes a certain amount of friendly envy. As you browse the forum you will find recipes that you really like, and gawed blimey you will be curing bacon next.

[Wilf]

Sounds a bit like our first attempt, although it still takes a while, time you cleaned everything down. Our first batch was too meaty, which we remedied now by getting the fat ratio better and some breadcrumbs. Our butcher always sort us us with the correct mix as we tell him its for sausages so we get some good back fat with it. Try frying a little patty off first in a pan to guage the flavour level before stuffing skins.

[awsaws]

Well the pork, apple and sage sausages tasted much better the day after I made them and bbq'ed really well at the w/e, so tonight I had a go at another different batch or two. So I tried Italian lamb, lamb and rosemary, lamb and mint and a savage lamb curry sausage. I used a little belly pork as well and the cut of lamb was the breast (so I figured it was fairly fatty anyway). At first taste they all were good, although I think the real test will be tomorrow when the flavors really start to come out. Strange that the curry sausage wasn't that spicy, even though I used a lot of fresh chillies and fresh ginger in it, maybe I should have added some chili powder as well.
I tried the sheeps casings this time and they were really hard to work with, very prone to knotting and breaking. Do the casings get stronger the longer you soak them? Is back fat better than belly fat? If I freeze some sausages tomorrow will the flavor keep intensifying after they've been frozen?

[sausagemaker]

Hi awsaws

It's good to see that you are getting to grips with the sausage making.
As for your questions.
1 not a lot of heat from your curry sausage, this could be due to there being too much fat although it's the fat that carries the flavour if there is too much it is cooked off taking the flavour with it.
2 does sausage casing get tougher the longer you soak, No just the opposite.
3. back fat being better than belly fat, there are both the same the two fats from pork are back fat the covering around the meat & next to the skin & Flare fat this is the fat that covers the internal organs, like suet.
4. does the flavour keep intensifying after freezing, Once the flavour has developed then freezing will only preserve the product it would be hard to say if the flavour got any better.

Hope this helps
Regards
sausagemaker