Making your own sausages.

[Paul D84]

Morning all,

I have decided to branch out a little bit and make my own sausages, I have brought a mincer with a sausage making attatchment and have ideas for some that I would like to make, but I was wondering if anyone here had made their own before and if you had any hints or tips as I don't really know what step to take next, I know I need to get the skins and that there a choices between collagen and nautral but I'm not sure which is best and what the best sausage mix is.

Any advice would be great.

[Rhona]

I've toyed with getting a sausage maker for a while. Which one did you get? I've made them by hand; got the skins free from butcher (if they make their own, they might give you some); made lamb and rosemary ones which were really nice. For starters, maybe get a nice piece of fatty free range pork, grind it yourself, basic seasoning, some breadcrumbs (homemade) and fresh herbs along with some dried.

Loads of flavours to play with, chili etc. and I needed to get used to seasoning with a sightly heavier hand - sausages just seem to need it, 'specially if cooked outdoors.

Let us know how you get on!

[Hazel at the Hill]

I don't have a sausagemaker (although I think my dad did - wonder what happened to it?), but remember this being discussed before - a quick search turned up this, includes a recommended book & website too.http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ge-making.html

[piskieinboots]

....- wonder what happened to it?)

Look in the loft

[poly]

Ooooh lucky you, I have a very basic and old hand sausage stuffer, but still works ok-just. I have only used the collagen skins, can't be doing with all that soaking etc.

I've used this site a couple of times, they are helpful and delivery is fast. The curing salt is great too if you fancy a go making bacon. Worth a look is the recipe section/forum link at the bottom, loads and loads of info
Sausage Making Equipment, Ingredients, gifts, recipes and ideas...

[Hazel at the Hill]

Look in the loft

The only thing in my mother's loft is a layer of fluffy new insulation about 4' deep. She is very proud of it.

Personally, I am loft-less.

[Birdie Wife]

I made venison sausages last year (well, made half of the mix into sausages and half into burger patties as the mincer broke ). I got collagen skins from the local butcher which cooked out really nicely and didn't need soaking. There are a stack of recipes on the net, I would experiment with your own seasonings and see what you like. It's all part of the fun! Are you intending to make your own mince, or make sausages from bought mince?

[Paul D84]

. Which one did you get?

I got a Kitchen Craft Cast Iron Mincer from John Lewis, I was thinking of getting some meat and mincing it myself and going from there, all the ideas are great and thank you for the links, really hungry for some sausages now Can you get collagen skins from any Butcher??

[TEB]

We make our own, rather OH does and I hover, we use Hog casing but there are quite a few different choices available and some are only suitable for different types of sausage, collagen cases are used for commercial sausages, sheep casings I have read are the best for the traditional fried banger. As to the best sausage mix then thats down to personal choice and experimentation (the best bit) but I would start of with a small batch of a basic banger. When we started off we bought "The Sausage Book" by Paul Peacock, this book takes you through the history, the different casing, the methods and the tools you may need, it also has over 90 recipes.

One tip that we learnt early on is not to use meat from the freezer as you have to eat a lotta lotta bangers in a short time or start giving them away

The next project is to make our own smoker so we can make smoked sausages.

[Lovage]

We made a basic mistake in trying to make low fat sausages with very lean meat - they were awful!
Unfortunately sausages need quite a bit of fat to give the right texture and flavour

[sauzee]

There is a company called scobies direct and they do all the sausage casings,seasonings,black pudding packs with dried ingredients and rusk which is the bread crumbs used in sausages they also sell butchers sundries
sauzee