Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anybody Make Sausage?

I'v been thinking of giving it a try,are there any" lower priced" (around $100-$150) casing stuffers worth the money? How about the Dakota Water Pack? I'm also looking for a recipe book for"How Tos" and seasoning mixtures if anybodies got any suggestions?
Jeff

J,

I make small batches of breakfast sausage from time to time and also make a summer sausage from deer meat that I grind, season and cure. I don't make it in the big tubes you normally see but shoot it out in sticks like a slim jim. I don't use casings on it since it makes it own when curing. Very Good!

J,

Check this site out, it may help...
Sausage Tools

I still get my casings from the local butcher for next to nothing. I also still use my "Rollman" hand crank grinder combo to stuff them using the attachment for that purpose, we have been using this same one for about 80 years in my family!

Who does'nt ?

I use an Oster food grinder. It comes with stuffing tubes in 3 sizes. About $ 100 - 120.

I make small batches of sausage each hunting season. I get salted cassings from HEB. There are lots of books avaliable on sausage making. If fact I grilled 2 links last night for dinner.

I also use my grinder to make venison burger. Lean venison mixed with ground brisket makes good hamburger.

I have no connection with these folks other than being a satisfied customer:

www.sausagemaker.com

I'm about to make my first attempts, too -- I got a grinder and some casings from Eldon's Sausage

They sell kits with recipes. There are also mouth-watering recipes in A.D. Livingston's book "Sausage" (got mine from Amazon) and several of Eileen Clarke's cookbooks from www.riflesandrecipes.com

I just use a stuffer tube on my grinder - stuff during the last grind. I buy my casings from Eldon's Sausage Supply in Kooskia, ID (see link above). He sells a good book with methods and recipes - The Sausage and Jerky Handbook or something like that. I don't buy the kits, but use some of his recipes. The summer sausage and german sausage (made with elk plus 10% beef fat and hickory smoked) is very good.

BTW, many of the game sausage recipes you'll find will suggest you mix half-n-half with pork. I never understood that. Don't do it. Just use whatever game you have (a bud of mine even uses duck which makes excellent sausage) and add a little beef fat from your local meat cutter. -al

I use a hand sqeezer (stuffer) that I borrow from a friend but I don't make near the amount of sausage that I would like. I smoke mine in a Little Chef smoker and then cook it when I am ready to eat it as the Little Chef doesn't get the temp up high enough to kill all the bad stuff.

Thanks for the input and links guys.I think I'll look into the Oster(electric?) grinder,I'v heard its a lot easier if you can have both hands free to hold the casings on the tube. Plus I'm kinda lazy. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> What got me going on this was buying some bratwurst from a store the other day.It wasn't REAL bad but I used to go to a little family owned store out in the boonies near Astoria,where they made their own and that stuff was unbeleivable. Had little chunks of onion and celery in it and just the right amount of seasonings.I'd cook some up with a baked potato and usually end up throwing the potato away. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Jeff

The Eldon's folks also gave very helpful advice on whether the grinder would work well for me (it was on sale), which casings to buy, etc. Pleasure doing business with them.

JScottRupp
I dont know much about making sausage, but I am an "EXPERT" on judging the taste. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> If you ever need a second opinion, just let me know. I am an expert on tasting all kinds of summer sausage and espicially breakfast sausage. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Dont hesitate to call if I can help. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Charlie

Here is our favorite formula, stuffed on Sausagemaker 5lb. press:

5 pounds venison/ pork mixture, about 50-50
3tbps Lowry's seasoned salt
1 tbsp course black pepper
1 teaspoon chipotle pepper, (35k)
1 tbsp marjoram ( course ground)
1 tbsp corriander
2 tbsps brown sugar
1 cup non fat dry milk
1 teaspoon cure

Mix all together with one cup of cold water which makes it slide thru the stuffer smoothly. We hang the links in a homemade smoker at about 180 to 200 f until the internal temp hits 150. Cool in cold water and chill over nite in the fridge or just leave it out in the cooled down smoker in the winter until the next day. It is ready to eat right away but we like it cold the next day. It rarely lasts more than a day or so. Keep a skillet ready as you mix the stuff up and sample before you stuff. Add your own ideas and see what happens. Good eating. mike

-al,

We have slowly but steadily increased the pork-to-venison ratio for our sausage until, after some years, we settled on 50-50. An average Kansas doe yields about 40 pounds of boned meat after the loins are removed, and to this we add a like amount of trimmed pork butt, or shoulder if you will. It gives the final product just enough fat and softens the texture nicely. We found pork trimming to be too fat. So one deer yields plenty of sausage material and seems well worth the price to us. We also use that mix of pork and venison for our burgers, meatloaf, etc.. The above recipe for smoked sauage is also great for links cooked slowly over the coals.

We get our stuff from SausageMaker in Buffalo NewYork. www.sausagemaker.com .Spice prices are great but shipping takes more than a week, sometimes a lot more. I can buy pork hanks locally for about $12.00, and can stuff a bit more than 100 lbs from a package. mike

Charlie, are you trying to say you like sausage? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Jeff

Thanks for the recipe,sounds good.I only have a Little Chief smoker,that I don't think will get that hot so I'll probably have to either smoke flavor and finish in the oven or freeze and cook as needed. Hopefully that'll work(oven baking) with summer sausage as well? I guess I'll try with and without the pork and see what I like.
Jeff

You can finish in the oven, but it's hard not to get too hot, so here's another way. Smoke in a cool smoker, less than 150degF, for several hours. You want it cool enough that the fat in the sausage doesn't render and make it greasy and shriveled. Then take it in the house and cook it in a large pot of water that is at 175degF. Once again, you don't want it too hot or the fat will render. Get a candy thermometer at the grocery store. Cook it until the internal temp of the sausage is 155degF. Stick a meat thermometer into the end of one of them and leave the gauge sticking up out of the water. Large summer sausages (2-2.5")will take about half an hour. Smaller sausages in hog casings will only take 10-15 minutes. When it's cooked, transfer it into a pot of cold water for a few minutes to cool it down quickly. Cooling it quickly will help prevent it from shriveling. Then hang it up in a cool place for a while to dry. After it's dry, store in the fridge for short term (couple weeks) or wrap and freeze for long-term storage. That is if you don't eat it all right away. Make more than you think cause it goes fast.

Another thing you'll want to do is cure the sausage before you smoke it. The mix should have curing salt (sodium nitrate) in it. After stuffing, put in fridge overnight. The nitrates will kill any clostridium spores (botulism), which would activate and grow in the warm, anaerobic environment of the smoker.

This is all explained in Eldon's book. -al

Thanks al,I guess I'd better order that book first thing, before I ruin any meat.
Jeff

It sounds kinda complicated, but it's really not. The hardest part is turning that crank. It's definitely worth it, though. When we cut up an elk, we put all the scrap in a big pile, bits and pieces of this and that, shoulder meat that doesn't make it's way into some kind of roast, anything that might have ended up a little blood-shot, etc., and end up usually with around 30 lbs. That's our sausage pile. And it's not nearly enough usually. Start passing it out at Christmas like Santa and 30 lbs goes fast. By summer we're usually grinding up roasts to make more.

I think my favorite might be Eldon's german sausage recipe. It has lots of paprika and crushed red pepper in it, so it's a little spicy. I stuff it into regular 30mm hog casings and smoke it. It's sorta like spicy italian sausage in a way, only without the fennel. We slice it up and put it in pasta dishes sometimes. Yummy.

And if you're a duck hunter, or know a duck hunter who ends up with a freezer full of ducks that they don't know what to do with, debone it and make sausage. It really turns out good. And if you have a bad habit of accidentally shooting lots of shovelers and such, you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so to speak. -al