I’m on dad duty this weekend so I thought it would be a good chance to try my hand at making sausage.
Any suggestions for simple recipes for a newb? Good websites for recipes?
I have lots of venison and pork butt, a sausage stuffer, and casings. Am thinking something like Italian, breakfast, or polish.
Make small batches til you no if your going to like a particular seasoning,nothing worse than “having to” eat 50# of sausage you dont like!!Keep the electric frypan handy to sample as you go,and lastly 1/2 gal of water added to 25# never hurts,it will make stuffing that much easier!!
One more,dont grind to fine or it will be like eating wet sawdust!!
Sausageheavenoutdoors.com has some easy recipes to follow
LEM breakfast sausage seasoning sold at fleet is great ! Do 1 1/2 times the seasoning it calls for tho.
Big time noob question here. Whats the difference in recipe between the summer sausage you’d buy at a grocery store (assume beef) and the venison sausage you’d get done at a butcher following deer season? Would like to make my own sausage one of these years, but afraid to make something similar to the store bought summer sausage crap.
Wsaltons has great seasonings , and forums with lots of info
Big time noob question here. Whats the difference in recipe between the summer sausage you’d buy at a grocery store (assume beef) and the venison sausage you’d get done at a butcher following deer season? Would like to make my own sausage one of these years, but afraid to make something similar to the store bought summer sausage crap.
A lot of the sausages you buy in grocery stores or like, Menards, have huge amounts of liquefied fat added to it and taste greasy. The warmer they are served, the worse the greasy taste becomes.
Venison is a dry meat so pork with fat is added to help make it moister. Water can be added too as long as its bottled water and in small amounts at a time. The mention of 1/2 gallon in a #25 batch makes me shutter.
Mike Martine mentions Waltons.com and they are a super vendor for seasoning mixes. The “H” Summer Sausage blend is simply outstanding. While some people use encapsulated citric acid to add some tang to their sausage like what’s found in a fermented sausage, try adding a 12 ounce carton of powdered buttermilk to a #25 batch of meat. The milk product goes a super long way towards making the meat finish really smooth. In that same #25 pound batch I also add 1/2 of a package of LEM’s protein powder.
If you go up to the menu at the top of the page and click on groups you’ll find one that has a lot of info and ideas on sausage making and doing it yourself is the only real way of ensuring that you get what is yours.
Tom adding water is a common practice over here,seasonings are mixed with the water drizzled in over top of the meat,mixed well and chilled overnight mixed again and put through the stuffer,it is interesting to see differences in sausage making from one area to the next.
I prefer a german(black pepper) sent through the stuffer and right to the freezer,no smoke.
What you are describing would be a summer sausage recipe here,where very little water is used?I have to do a batch soon and would like to try the waltons as its not available on the shelf here.I will give the powdered buttermilk a try.
I’ve found that too much water is a real problem down the road, after smoking. If the sausage stays too wet you lose some appeal and the product is far more prone to spoilage in the fridge if its there longer than a week. Even fully cured and smoked meats have a finite storage time. Dry cured products can tolerate time much better but that’s an entirely different cure.
I agree that water has to be added to make the meat manageable after adding the cure and seasonings as all of the add-ins will stiffen the meat to near cement-like handling. I just add the water in small amounts and mix like crazy before any more goes in. I have to admit that I go by “feel” when it comes to water in the meat but I have never had to add even a quart. And yes, the type of sausage will dictate how wet it needs to be and I understand that.
Click up Waltons.com and look at the H summer sausage mix. I love the stuff and there are a lot of others here that use it. They’re snack stick seasoning is crazy good….their “best” seller stuff. Same with the jerky and again the best seller stuff. I have a bag of snack sticks open right now and they’re a real problem for me….I eat the things like crazy. The whole or cut muscle jerky is just plain knock you socks off good. Do add the protien flour and powdered buttermilk to the summer sausage. You’ll need to add upwards of a quart od water to this but in the end this sausage is out of sight.
Bill, I sent you a pm.
Very good to know, Tom. I’m a few successful hunts away from digging into more information, but appreciate your information for the time being.
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