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| Separating the casings |
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| Grinding the meat |
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| Cutting the meat |
Is there anything more delicious than fresh pork sausage? We don't think so either, and it's not as difficult as you would think to make. All you need is a sausage grinder, a sausage stuffer (optional), some pig intestines, seasonings, and 30 pounds of pork kicking around! The intestines, or natural casings, may seem gross, but to us the plastic collagen alternative seemed more disgusting. To date we've gone through the process of making sausage three times. To begin, chop up your desired meat into chunks, add your favorite seasonings, and let it sit overnight. So far we've used premade Cajun, Maple, and Sweet Italian seasoning mixes, amending the Maple with some Spring Creek Farm dried sage. But there are no rules! Feel free to experiment with different seasonings and concoct your own. The next day, after the seasonings have infused the meat, add a little water and grind it up! Although it is possible to stuff the sausage as it comes out the grinder, it is easier for novices to put it into a sausage stuffer. The stuffer is a hand-crank powered device that allows for a more consistent sausage flow. Either way, a casing needs to be put into place at the sausage exit point. In years past, Adam and Shelby had used collagen casings, but decided to try out natural casings this time. The natural casings came in a tub, cleaned and heavily brined, with no hint of their previous profession. After filling the sausage stuffer and setting up the casing, one person starts cranking the sausage out, trying to maintain a steady pace and even flow of ground meat. Meanwhile, the second person must slowly unfurl the casing as it fills with sausage, being careful to keep a speed that ensures uniform sausage thickness, neither overfilling the casing nor allowing it to have air pockets.
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| Stuffing the casings |
The casing length varied from about 4 to 6 feet, and once you run out of casing, it is time to make the links! First we pricked the sausage with a small fork, to allow excess air to escape. Next simply pinch the casing at the desired intervals, and twist it two or three times. They can be stored in this classic link chain, or, as we did, cut apart and frozen for individual servings.
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| Twisting links |
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| Vacuum-packing the finished links |
The first sausage-making fest, it was ourselves, Adam, Barbara, Shelby, and Marcus. It was a cold rainy day outside, but we had a grand old time listening to polka music and making sausage jokes as we transformed 30 pounds of chopped meat into 30 neat packages of sausage. How could we end the day without a delicious taste test frying up each different variety, and enjoying the most scrumptious sausage ever?
The next time we only did 10 pounds, and we made it all cajun since that's what we had left. It was again ourselves, Adam, and Marcus, but Brandi, a new WWOOFer was also there. Lane, a new WWOOFer who had never spent much time on a farm before, arrived in the midst of the polka music and sausage-making festivities, and bewilderedly but enthusiastically joined in.
Later we helped Barbara make venison sausage. The process was basically the same, except we had to add pork fat since the meat was so lean. Since Barbara is a veteran sausage maker, she skipped the extra step of putting it in the stuffer, and instead filled the casings straight from the grinder.
We were glad to get the lessons on sausage making, because any day that starts with sausage, even a cold day of hard farm work is a day to be looked forward to.
