Anyone make their own sausages and would care to share any tried and tested recipes?

I’ve got a hold of a meat grinder and a sausage stuffing attachment, some hog casing on the way, just need a decent first recipe to give it a go.

If you add any onion, apple, fruit, veg etc to the recipe then I’d cook them separately first to get the water out.. makes the flavour more concentrated too..

Yep, love making our own. Just had delivery of pigs today too ready to fatten up.

You need to get the right balance of fat to meat, so cuts like belly are great for sausages.

Paul peacock has a  good book but just do not overdo the rusk. I’d always try and reduce the amount that he states.

I have made them occasionally, I tend to mince the meat and then season before filling the casings, this allows you to fry a small blob of the seasoned meat and taste each time to check for taste. Take it easy if using dried herbs as easy to overdo, mace seems to work well as a spice.

Oooh, it may be the hangover talking, but this thread has me thinking it’d be an amazing idea to start making my own sausages… How challenging is it, really? And is it worth it over just buying good shop ones?

Well I’ve ordered that Paul Peacock book recommended above, bought 1.5kg of pork shoulder and 1.5kg of pork belly and some additional spices. Will give it a go on Sunday and post the results.

You’ve reminded me that I have a sausage making attachment for the Kenwood still in the box. I think I’ll dig it out and give it a go this weekend.

How long to casings keep in the fridge? If they’ve not been thrown away then they’ll have been in there a few months.

Beats shop brought hands down. You know exact what has gone in to the sausage and is rewarding.

I got a pig for my 30th and a butchery day where sausage making was day two after the main cuts. We now get pigs from friends and butcher ourselves. Always make sausages when we get a pig.

Don’t overfill the casings either, they look great when stuffed fit to bursting, but will explode in the oven. No one likes a sausage to explode prematurely….

Don’t make my own but one tip I saw from TV was to cook a little bit of the mix off before stuffing to check seasoning etc esp. if you are experimenting.

How long to casings keep in the fridge?

If they are salted and kept dry etc then pretty much years.

Thanks km79. They’re still in the packaging they came in so they should be fine.

Even the casings you have soaked ready for using can be popped back in the fridge if not used. Just pat dry and resalt, place in airtight container in the fridge.

Once you have made your own and eaten, you’ll wonder why you ever ate shop brought sausages.

When you come to tie them , its squeeze before twist .

Incredibly satisfying to do .

Got everything I needed early this morning so thought I’d give it a try today. Word of warning for anyone else trying for the first time, it took me a lot longer than I thought it would.

I rinsed and soaked the casings in cold water for about 3hrs. Had a pack of four which said total was around 26m, I only soaked one.

Had a combined 2.7kg of pork shoulder and pork belly which I cubed and stuck in freezer for about 40mins along with the steralized metal parts of the mincer to stop the mincer internals getting clogged up with pork fat.

Whilst that was chilling, I measured out all my spices and seasoning. Decided to go with three lots of 900g. One lot of leek and mustard, one lot of Cumberland style and one lot of spicy Cajun style.

Minced the pork and mixed the two lots together (used a cutter with 4.5mm holes), split into three and added the seasoning to each lot and gave it a mix with my mixer. Fried off a spoonful of each to check for seasoning (could have happily stopped at this stage as they were all great as meatballs!). Stuck them all in the fridge to chill for a couple hours whilst the casing was still soaking.

A couple hours later I setup the mincer with the sausage stuffing attachment, fed on the casing which was easy enough and loaded up the hopper with the first batch of sausage meat. First up was the leek and mustard, this went in a bit uneven but was able to even out the thickness once finished. Linked them into 12 nice thick long sausages, which was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Did the twist one way then the opposite way for the next one method. Next up was the Cumberland style and this went in pretty much perfect much to my surpise. Got two medium round coils out of this. Ran out of casing part way through the Cajun ones which was not supposed to happen, only got 6 links here. Just put the remaining mixture into meatballs instead.

Put the sausages in the fridge for a couple hours before giving them a try. Het up an enameled cast iron pan on low heat with a bit of oil, added 4 links and let them brown slowly and then put on the lid. Cooked them slowly for about 20mins. Two of the links exploded in the pan, I suspect they were overstuffed and had air in them still. The other two were fine.

Taste wise they were excellent, totally different texture from any shop or butcher links I’ve had before, I suspect if I passed it through the mincer twice and let it mix for longer in my mixer the texture would have been less coarse but I liked it as is. Stayed moist enough so I think the 50-50 shoulder to belly was spot on for fat content. The only slight criticism I had was the thickness of the casings once cooked were just a bit thicker than I would have liked.

Got the equivelent of 36 large sausages out the mix and I also pinched some of the mixture for a few burgers as well. For what was I think about £12 worth of pork from the butchers it was a bargain considering the end result. I will definitely do it again.