Its the season…..

I just placed my sausage seasoning and casing order with Waltons. Since I have an abundance of two kinds of vennie hot dogs yet and the ring bologna is sitting well I only ordered the seasonings and casings for summer sausage this year. I also added jerky and stick seasoning as well as all pork brat and breakfast sausage seasonings. Gotta have jerky and if there’s enough scrap I’ll do some sticks.

With all the rain I’ll likely be sitting near standing corn again this year. Sure glad I hunt up high as the low ground will be a mess for a while and probably be that way for the first season. The standing corn has always been good where I hunt….we’ll see what this year delivers.

HyVee in Rochester has had the pork butts at $.99 twice in a month and I now have about 100 pounds of it in the freezer. I getting low on brats and breakfast sausage and making both of these while the grinding and stuffing gear is out just makes sense as far as mess and hassle goes so I ordered what I need to get these done while cutting deer.

For those who want to know which seasonings I prefer from Waltons, I like the “H” Summer Sausage, the Holly breakfast, Blue Ribbon brat, “Willies” stick and Colorado Spicy for the jerky. These are about the best spice blends I have found and used but the stuff found at Scheels and FleetFarm will work well too in a pinch.

expecting a road kill!!!!!!!!! morning Tom!!!!!

I could have gathered up a dandy this morning Glenn. Was thinking of you, but it was raining and I didn’t want to get wet.

well I am in red wing for the nite!!

Tom, I assume your casings for weiners and baloney are natural casings? Probably also for some other stuff you do? Do you get all your casings from Waltons?

We are using Nature Best Casings. International Casing Group sells them. You have to buy through a distributor though. My fibourous casings come through Home Butchering Supply LLC out of Wisconsin.

I just picked up 2 cases of pork trim (130#). $1.02#. I like the trim I get. It’s out of MPI in Madison. I’ve used the hyvee buts and I thought they were a little lean for my preference. I also don’t need to remove a bone. I do repackage in 10# bags. Easier to handle and thaw out. Season is upon us.

RR…..I get all of my natural casings locally. The fibrous for the summer sausage [2.4″ X 12″] I get from Waltons with the seasoning orders. Casings for sticks I might get from Waltons but I can get those locally for about the same price. I don’t make much more than 15 pounds into sticks at a time….the casings are pricey and so is the seasoning. Why I don’t know.

I do my brats as fresh sausage and will probably get to that in a couple weeks just to not have to do it later. I don’t mind the boning on the butts as its only a small piece of shoulder. I save the bones and then roast them and then add some water to the roasting pan and simmer them for an hour. I strain the broth and put it in a wide sauté pan and simmer it until its cooked down to a near black sticky goo. This gets brought back to life by adding a couple cups of water and cooked until the pasty stuff is re-incorporated then thickened with corn starch/water for gravy. This is the richest gravy I’ve ever eaten and love it on my potatoes just because.

Thanks Tom. Doing the gravy thing with the bones sounds good.

I have 2 I bought from hyvee for curing and smoking. They are very good like that.