Getting into sausage making.

[littleblazer]

Afternoon gents. As some of you may have seen, over the last year or so I've started into the foray of sausage making. And I must say it's a disease. I started with the stand mixer grinder attachment for my kitchenaid. That worked pretty good for meat but not so well for stuffing. So for Christmas my parents bought me a stuffer. But now the production of the stuffer exceeds what I can comfortably grind. (See what I'm getting at. Sounds awfully familiar doesn't it.) So I'm at the point now where I'm looking at getting a meat grinder. Now what I plan to do is have this thread as a discussion on this if others do or are interested in this. I plan to update as I go along.

For now I'm looking at the LEM big bite #8. Seems as though it is far more capable than anything I'd ever need.

For meat, I have a restaurant supply house account through the business so I get stupid fresh meat cheaper than the butcher and all I have to do is clean it a little. For convenience the butcher is closer but I walk out of there with 3x as much for the same price.

And right now what I've been doing is perfecting my chicken sausage recipie. And I have. Anyway, if you all have input on what equipment you run etc. Feel free to let me know.if we already have this type of thread my bad. I looked quick and didn't see anything so I'm hoping this is good. If it's the wrong section, move it. I think I've covered all I want to... so thanks.

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

I think I have Weston no 5 grinder. I do all my own venison and have played with mixing it with beef/bacon/pork. I don't do much in the way of casing sausage just more the bulk style. My buddy has a breakfast sausage seasoning he mixes up that is great. I have done summer sausage before and with the new pellet grill/smoker I think I may be trying to some more sausage ideas with the extra venison in the freezer.

 

[Matt]

I only make Australian beef sausages and TBH, I use pre-ground 80/20 because it's more convenient and a lot less messy. I have a grinder (Ebay brand) that works well, but it's such a PITA cleaning up considering I only do 10lbs at a time.

 

[littleblazer]

This is the chicken sausage. It's amazing actually and you wouldn't expect chicken to be so juicy. I've got a nice bratwurst recipie I marinate in beer for 2 days too.

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

I love Aidells Chicken sausage. Also the Spinach and Feta Chicken from Alfresco are really tasty.

Now you got me wanting to experiment more. be nice to have a basic recipe and then start playing with it. That is how my jerky goes.

 

[littleblazer]

I love Aidells Chicken sausage. Also the Spinach and Feta Chicken from Alfresco are really tasty.

Now you got me wanting to experiment more. be nice to have a basic recipe and then start playing with it. That is how my jerky goes.

80% breast meat and 20% thigh is perfect for texture. I found this recipe for a roasted garlic and feta sausage that sounds tempting.

I'd do it in a sheep casing though and have it breakfast size rather than brat size. Thats just me.

 

[Kelly@PCMofNC]

Neat hobby to get into. Annnnnd, now I'm hungry.

 

[littleblazer]

Neat hobby to get into. Annnnnd, now I'm hungry.

That happens a lot actually. Especially when you fry a little to make sure the taste is okay.

 

[TollKeeper]

I think I am getting fatter just reading this thread. Would love some fresh summer sausage, elk, bison, venison, etc..

 

[littleblazer]

I'm grinding up the chicken for the garlic one right now. I tweaked the recipe a little so I'll let you all know how it goes.

 

[littleblazer]

I'd say that was successful. Very tasty the way I did it. I'm going to taste another patty and write down the recipe. Keep you all updated.

 

[littleblazer]

Heres the recipie as I used it. I ran it on a coarse grind twice. Once was the meat only and the second was everything added. For the oregano I only had dried flakes so I ran that. Numbers to the right are what I actuall added. Came out really good.

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Sweet. how many sausages does 1361 chicken breast make?

 

[littleblazer]

Sweet. how many sausages does 1361 chicken breast make?

My bad, that's in grams. it made 3 11 inch rings and a couple of patties.

 

[littleblazer]

So I cooked up a buffalo chicken sausage recipe today... It is pretty smacking. (I've only had patties so far, I'm making sausage rings on the grill later and will post some photos.)
So I used:
75% by weight breast meat (Bonless, skinless)
25% by weight Thigh meat (de-boned, skin on)
.18-.20 g per 1g of meat of hot sauce mix (see below) the .18 to .20 is again to taste... pan fry a little to see if you like it.
.16 g per 1 g of meat of cream cheese softened (basically room temp)
.12 g per gram of meat of nacho taco blend cheese (basically three cheese grated with taco seasoning)
Mix it all up and stuff into a casing or just mash up some patties to grill.


The "Hot Sauce"
1 stick of butter, melted in a bowl
1 heaping teaspoon of minced garlic, add to the melted butter
about 1/4 cup of hot sauce (I used franks red hot because it's classic so why not?) and add that to the butter garlic mixture to taste. I went closer to 1/3 cup because you get that mellow butter taste and the nice hot kick. The original recipe is actually 6 tablespoons of butter to 1/4 cup of hot sauce with a minced clove of garlic... now that I think about it I basically just scaled that up lol. (except the garlic, I like garlic so extra doesn't bother me) Whatever you don't use just toss on some chicken wings, that sauce is courtesy of Alton Brown. The goal with this is to let it stand to the point where it is cool but still liquid, so that when you dump it over the chicken it doesn't cook or warm it up much at all, but doesn't paste up until it is pretty well mixed.

 

[littleblazer]

Update: very good.

 

[littleblazer]

Thoughts: I think swapping the cream cheese with a blue cheese style dressing wouldn't suck and it would highlight the buffalo better.

Also i had an idea for another one.... philly cheese steak sausage. How does that sound?

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

I love the idea of the blue cheese buffalo. I been making a chicken dip with those flavors on my pellet grill and everyone loves it.

Considering there is no where around me with good cheese steaks and I been craving them for weeks...DO IT. Sounds awesome.