Tag Archives: Sausage

Chicken Sausage

Posted on by
1

The sausage maker strikes again.  This time with a smaller load of chicken thighs.

20160916_162720

I started with only 5 pounds of chicken thighs instead of 10+ pounds of meat like last time.  The pieces were chopped up smaller this time, and I didn’t add any pork fat.  This was just simple chicken, salt, pepper, and a little fresh rosemary from the garden.

Last time I was doing a lot of meat shoveling and stuffing, and ended up having to employ my lovely wife to help.  I didn’t get many pictures as a result.  This time my maker mom was in town.  I figured out how to guide with one hand while I pressed with the other.  Mom filled the hopper and took pictures.  

I don’t know if it was the consistency difference, the smaller hunk size or what, but this batch went really smoothly.  My diameter consistency needs help still, but I am improving.  When all was said and done, we had two piles of lumpy but delicious looking sausage.

img_0834

The batch with rosemary got grilled for dinner the same night as it was made.  I don’t know if it should sit in the fridge a few nights for the flavors to meld or not, but this worked well.  It was pretty tender and moist enough.  Not as much as the brats were, but the fat content of this was a lot lower.  A very delicious and cheap chicken sausage for the grill.

20160916_182613

The second batch got smoked a few days later.  It was also quite delicious.  I am glad I didn’t use any white meat, the sausage was good, but could probably easily be dry if it were any leaner.

20160918_170358

Homemade Bratwurst

Posted on by
1

I just had some of the best sausage I have ever tasted, and it came from my own kitchen!  Follow me on a pork filled journey of discovery and mistakes as we watch sausage being made.

Ok, not quite, this was a two person ordeal and when your hands are covered in pork, you don’t get to do much camera work.  How does one make sausage?  It is quite easy, take 10lb of boston butt, and add a bit more pork fat.

DSC_0462

Chop all this up into small cubes to go into the meat grinder.  It takes a while to chop up 11 pounds of meat, and I got a little impatient and didn’t make all the pieces as small as I should.  You are supposed to do one inch cubes, but I got lazy and did a lot bigger.  This laziness bit me later on.  Mix the meat and fat together with seasoning (bratwurst pack in my case) and put in the freezer for a short while to really firm up.

DSC_0463

Next comes the fun and messy part.  I got a meat grinder attachment for my kitchen-aid.  Not sure if it is the ideal meat grinder, but it was super cheap.  Put on a sausage stuffer tube, slide the hog casings on, and let her rip!

DSC_0465

This is where all the trouble came in.  The chucks went down the hopper fine, but the auger had problems with them.  I think it was the cut size, but until I repeat this with a smaller average chunk size that is just a guess.  At any rate it required a lot of force pushing down the throat to get anything to come out.  Filling and pushing became a full time job.  The other person had one hand supporting the sausage and another on the tube regulating the casings coming out.  If you don’t do that part you get a lot of air and irregular filling.  It took forever, but we found a good pace and made a ton of sausage.  Seriously, 11lb is a lot!

DSC_0464

DSC_0467

DSC_0466

Some we successfully twisted off into links, most of it was just in a huge coil.  It was lumpy, inconsistent and involved a lot of swearing, but it grilled up real nice.  Flipping this monster wasn’t too hard once the bottom side firmed up a bit.

DSC_0468

 

The final results were well worth it.  This stuff is amazing!  Tender, juicy, and it holds together pretty well in the casing.  The seasonings have sunk in a little more with time and leftovers area  treat.  The picture below was only the first bit that we grilled, and probably represents less than 1/3rd of the total haul.  Hopefully it freezes well once vacuum packed!

DSC_0469