Help for the newbie

[Maryhillgull]

Hi I am about to join what appears to be a growing army of sausage makers, my dads uncle used to own a deli and sold sausages of all sorts including savaloys that were to die for. My great uncle passed away some time ago and the shop has now sold many things and is now a pound shop.

I went to catering college and worked as a chef for a numer of years before changing jobs, but I still love to cook and would love to make my own sausages, and last week whilst helping mum and dad clear the garage what should I find but a book containing over 200 recipes from my great uncles shop. These were thougth to be lost and after a few calls the family agreed that I should take the book and see what I can come up with.

So raring to go I obviously need some equipment, I have about �350 to spend so obviously need a mincer, sausage maker and some casings etc. I allready have good knives mixing bowls etc so its really just the Sausage making specific stuff I'll need. I have been wading thru this and other sites but the choice is so varied, so any advice you would care to give this newbie would be much appreciated.

[Rik vonTrense]

Hi Mary and welcome to the forum....

I run the cheese bit but I make sausages too.

If you want to start off cheepo then the best mixer to get is a Kenwood chef (900 series) and a mincer attachment off of ebay and you will want two cutting disk a fine and a coarse. This should set you back about �20 for the machine and a tenner for the mincer.

Thats the meat grinding situation out of the way the next important thing is a stuffer. I use Franco's vertical hobby stuffer it holds enough for four or five pounds of sausages but it is easy to refill and carry on. These cost �69.

Casings you have a choice of and I recomment collagen artificial edible ones (22 and 28's) first off and keep these in a jar of vegetable oil. When you are use to the then go onto sheeps and hog casings.

Various spices such as salt pepper nutmeg mace etc etc byt you may have your own spices from your recipes.

A few other things like rusk kibbled onions and kosher salt and the cures for bacon making is a must.

You should be able to make a good start for around �150 so get cracking
or you copuld always atart off with a Porket hand mincer which would be cheaper.

PS....I am a saveloy addict so you can always slip me the recipe.......


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[welsh wizard]

Hi Mary

What type of quantities do you expect to make?

Cheers WW

[Maryhillgull]

Thanks Rik and WW

First off I should clear up the name its not Mary, Maryhill is where I live and I have been a life long Brighton Fan hence the gull (seagulls). It is the name I use on all my forums so as not to confuse myself.

I hope to be producing quite a few of my great uncles recipes and have lots and lots of relatives who will be keen to try them so I would guess between 2-3kg a week maybe more when the Bar-B-Que season kicks in.

I have already taken the plunge a bought an 1kw electric mincer with reverse of eBay and have bought the Stainless hobby stuffer from this site. The next issue is casings not sure whether to get hog or collagen there seems to be some debate on this issue. I suspect I'll buy a small quantity off both and see which works best.

Hopefully my new equipment will arrive early this week and I can get some sausages made asap.

Rik I'll make the savaloys as soon as I can. I've already got a home smoker and if they work I'll post the recipe, though the recipe was obviuosly developed just after the war as there are some odd ingredients to say the least, but they tasted great!

Cheers ALL!

[Wohoki]

Hi, just my ha'penny worth on casings: if you want to make sausage like super-market budget bangers go with collagen, and if you want to make good butchers-quality bangers (and better!) then use hog or sheep. Collagen casings may be easy to use, but they are made from the conective tissues and tendons recovered from abattoir waste, chemically recovered and factory processed. Natural casings are just a cleaned and salted animal product in it's natural state. I don't see the point of making a product that isn't at least as good as the best you can buy, because home made are usually at least as expensive.

[Rik vonTrense]

Hmmm Saveloys......We used to get them before the war from the German pork butchers and they were great.

Developed after the war then if they don't contain spam or dried egg youre okay.

[Wohoki]

When I was in Russia last, the only breakfast I could afford was bread and sausage. The sausage in question was always a tinned Spam analogue, only made without nitate so it was grey. No mustard, no pickles, but all the fish-oil based marge you could eat. Man, I lost some weight.

[jenny_haddow]

That ties in with my memories of Archangel, just shut your eyes and eat!

Jen

[Oddley]

Maryhillgull, I like you make a large amount of sausages for the family. Planing is vital. I would like to suggest you plan to use 2 days especially for your first batch.

The first day acquiring the meat, boning, cutting, and mincing, organizing the spices rusk etc. Then in the fridge overnight. next day spicing stuffing and the clean up.

I have to say as far as casings go I like natural hogs and sheep's casing.

I would be very interested to see a saveloy recipe as I just love them.

[aris]

Collagen casings may be easy to use, but they are made from the conective tissues and tendons recovered from abattoir waste, chemically recovered and factory processed.

I don't believe this is true - collagen casings are made from the hides of cattle.

[Wohoki]

I just checked, you're quite right: abattoir waste from the outside of a cow, rather than just the inside. My mistake.

[welsh wizard]

Hi Maryhillgull

It sounds as if you have got all the right stuff to get stuffing for the quantities you are proposing to make. I much prefer natural casings and they are not at all difficult to work with, just a little time is needed and for my two p's worth they are far better than the artificial substituite.

Anyway keep pn keeping on it is VERY addictive.

Cheers WW