The Sausage Thread

[Renegade]

So we turned out our first batch yesterday, I'm certain some are far too tightly packed, and others too loose. Pretty sure that some will split if look at them the wrong way ! But all in all it wasn't too bad for a first run, ended up with two kg's of beef & pork sausages, 1/2 flavoured with smoked paprika & cajun spices, the other with garden herbs. Will cook a couple up tonight, see how they go.

Actually came here with a question about where to source cheap natural casings, but James already posted a link. Mate, that site you mentioned - how many meters are in a bundle, do you know?

I paid $8 for one length of salted hog casing, which I thought was bit of a rip off. I would estimate it would only make about 3kg's (ie we used about 2/3rds by the look of it).

So all suggestions of cheap suppliers would be great (not just casings but for meat too, if any Sydney guys know of a butcher that's super-cheap and east of Parramatta)

EDIT: Just rang the guys above, and he said that with the warmer weather it's not a great idea to have casing shipped interstate, as they may spoil.

 

[Katherine]

My brother sells the natural casings. I just rang him. He sells them directly to the butchers. So he suggested just go door knocking. Unfortuantly butchers are slow at them moment competing with woolworths etc.

 

[benno1973]

I asked at butchers and only found 1 butcher willing to sell me natural casings out of the 5 I asked. I've since heard that Charlie's in Morley sells them (for those Perthite's out there)

 

[tcraig20]

So we turned out our first batch yesterday, I'm certain some are far too tightly packed, and others too loose. Pretty sure that some will split if look at them the wrong way ! But all in all it wasn't too bad for a first run, ended up with two kg's of beef & pork sausages, 1/2 flavoured with smoked paprika & cajun spices, the other with garden herbs. Will cook a couple up tonight, see how they go.

Actually came here with a question about where to source cheap natural casings, but James already posted a link. Mate, that site you mentioned - how many meters are in a bundle, do you know?

I paid $8 for one length of salted hog casing, which I thought was bit of a rip off. I would estimate it would only make about 3kg's (ie we used about 2/3rds by the look of it).

So all suggestions of cheap suppliers would be great (not just casings but for meat too, if any Sydney guys know of a butcher that's super-cheap and east of Parramatta)

EDIT: Just rang the guys above, and he said that with the warmer weather it's not a great idea to have casing shipped interstate, as they may spoil.

Im not sure how much there is in a bundle. I bought this last time:

http://www.mblsa.com.au/view/pg?command=cm..._item_id=363135

Its a double bundle. At a guess Ive made 30-40kg of sausages and havent made much of a dent in it. I wouldnt be suprised if you got 180-200kg out of it. Cheap as chips.

Im suprised that they talked you out of buying from them though. I put in an order from them last summer when Adelaide was in the middle of a 40+ heat wave. They did warn me about spoilage, but said that they could vaccuum bag the casings and post them. They went on to say that this was how they shipped casings to remote Aboriginal communities in the NT, and they had never had a problem (but they just wouldnt guarantee it). Anyway, my casings got here fine, came further than yours would have to, and would travel a lot cooler right now than mine did.

I'd suggest giving them another call and asking about vaccuum bagging, because I havent found anywhere that can even approach their prices!

Edit: I just remembered these guys, I havent bought from them, but they are on the east coast at least:

http://www.sausagemaking.com.au/

Might be worth giving them a call and doing some pricing - they have nowhere near the range of MBLSA though. According to their website, a bundle of hog casings is 150-200 metres.

 

[chappo1970]

6 months without home made sausages has been murder so after some poking and prodding by Kids and SWMBO I got my finger out.

Cranked out 3kgs this weekend not quite in the AndrewQld's fashion (Love that sausage stuffer Andrew DROOL! it's gone on the Santa must buy me list). Used to hand grind, crank and stuff but the kids and SWMBO bought me a cheapy kmart variety electric mincer and stuffer that seems to do the job well enough.

Went to Jack Purcels yesterday and bought a whole topside 9.9kgs so used the daggy end bits trimmed the gnarly bits (while vac sealing) and a couple of choice center bits to make the snags. Also for anyone in Brisbane Jacks have natural fresh casings and salted/perserved natural casing if you won't use all of it strainght away. About $4 will get you more than enough to make 10kgs of sausages easy. I bought a couple of containers of the salted to have when I can't make it over to the northside. Last a while and all you need to do is soak them in 2 cups of water and 1 tbs of white vinegar.

Beef and Bacon Snags (Kids love em)
1kg Topside
250gr Bacon Bits (smoked is better)
1 Large Onion spanish
2 large tomato's (1 cup approx)
Fresh Parsley finely chopped
Fresh Rosemary
Salt and Cracked pepper to taste
4tbs Olive Oil
4tbs Red Wine Vinegar

Chap's Chilli Beef
2kg Topside
2 Onions (Red Spanish)
Fresh Chilli's (To taste)
Fresh Rosemary
Fresh garlic
Fresh Chives
Fresh Corrianda
Fresh Ginger
Olive Oil
Seasame Oil
Salt and Pepper
Water

All the herbs and onions are from our veggie patch so it's 10x better than dried IMO.



Chap Chap

 

[Mitternacht Brauer]

Beef and Bacon Snags (Kids love em)
1kg Topside
250gr Bacon Bits (smoked is better)
1 Large Onion spanish
2 large tomato's (1 cup approx)
Fresh Parsley finely chopped
Fresh Rosemary
Salt and Cracked pepper to taste
4tbs Olive Oil
4tbs Red Wine Vinegar

Hi Chappo,

I made these today and they were loved by all BUT ....

While cooking these snags 99% split on the BBQ . Now what have I done wrong .

I thought maybe they are packed too tight ?

Too much moisture inside ?

Should I have left them over night ?


I tried pricking some and leaving some but it didn;t make any diff ?

Any advice guys ?

 

[porky]

I find the only way to cook without having them split is over very low heat and slow cooking.

I will be stuffing six kg of Italian sausage today...mixed the meat yesterday.

Cheers,
Bud

 

[capretta]

ok so today was the big day, am making my first sausages! really keen on bratwurst, i picked up a sunbeam sg5600. I started the machine up for the first time last night and though it sounded a little grindy, and smelt quite electrical (like a drill with dirty brushes etc) i thought it would be ok as ones i had seen on youtube sounded similar.
well after about 2 kilos of pork/bacon Ka-Chunk and that was the end of it. the shaft inside the housing had snapped a cog or something. I had been using pork shoulder and had cut almost all of the skin off (leaving as much fat as possible) so as not to stress it out but that was the last thing to go through, a scrap about as big as my thumb.. so, did i screw up or was this machine a lemon?

tl;dr can pork skin go through an electrical meat grinder?

 

[capretta]

oh yeah ps this was my recipe, i ended up filling 2 kilo of sausage by hand. very messy and not that attractive, but some meat got inside..
Bramburger Bratwurst

2kg Pork shoulder
1kg bacon
260mi Milk
3 Eggs
4.1g Salt
30ml White wine
6g White pepper
4.25 Mace
4g Cardamom
3g Marjoram
I would have taken more pics but once crap went haywire i had to sort it out quickly so the meat wouldnt spoil..

 

[AndrewQLD]

Sorry to hear your machine broke, sounds like it was a lemon as I've used my cheapo mincer for ages without any problems. The snags look great Capretta how did they taste.

Here's a couple of pics from the weekend effort with Gregs and Thunus, about 20+kg snags, Pork, Bratwurst, Beef and pork with apple and onion.

 

[gregs]

Sorry to hear your machine broke, sounds like it was a lemon as I've used my cheapo mincer for ages without any problems. The snags look great Capretta how did they taste.

Here's a couple of pics from the weekend effort with Gregs and Thunus, about 20+kg snags, Pork, Bratwurst, Beef and pork with apple and onion.

View attachment 39045View attachment 39046[/quote]


Yeah great weekend Andrew, and the tast is fantastic :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2:

Action shot

 

[capretta]

Sorry to hear your machine broke, sounds like it was a lemon as I've used my cheapo mincer for ages without any problems. The snags look great Capretta how did they taste.

well, you could be right, i went back to the store and was honest and they said it was very unusual and replaced it for new straight away. i couldn't really ask for more after having had it ( unused) for 6 months already. for all they knew i was grinding up old truck tyres..

well the snags were good, the texture was quite "rustic" having only gone through one coarse grind, though i also think the meat/bacon ratio was probably off due to me not finishing all of the meat.

next time i will grind the hard seeds in the mortar/pestle BEFORE adding the leafy green herbs. there were a few stray cardamom seeds! having a nicer more thorough blend of flavour would improve it immensely i reckon.

Very meaty flavour though! not what i expected at all. I haven't had home-made sausages before and when you eat normal sausages there is a definite feeling that it is "lesser" meat ( you'd prefer a tbone if it was there ) but home-made sausages are really normal meats equal.

 

[AndrewQLD]

well the snags were good, the texture was quite "rustic" having only gone through one coarse grind, though i also think the meat/bacon ratio was probably off due to me not finishing all of the meat.
One course grind should be enough (gregs has shown me the light) the trick is to emulsify the ground up meat really well, we used a mixer (similar to a kenwood chef) this will Give you nice textured and juicy sausages.

next time i will grind the hard seeds in the mortar/pestle BEFORE adding the leafy green herbs. there were a few stray cardamom seeds! having a nicer more thorough blend of flavour would improve it immensely i reckon.
Nothing like chomping on a cardamon seeds (yuk)

Very meaty flavour though! not what i expected at all. I haven't had home-made sausages before and when you eat normal sausages there is a definite feeling that it is "lesser" meat ( you'd prefer a tbone if it was there ) but home-made sausages are really normal meats equal.

home made is the best

 

[capretta]

One course grind should be enough (gregs has shown me the light) the trick is to emulsify the ground up meat really well, we used a mixer (similar to a kenwood chef) this will Give you nice textured and juicy sausages.

thats interesting, cause i liked the texture, but there were some "blocky" bits of meat. emulsify? dribble a little cooled boiled water in with the meat?

 

[AndrewQLD]

Most recipes will call for an addition of iced water and when you mix the meat it causes the fat and meat to blend slightly and creates a smoother more uniform texture, if you watch the meat as it is mixing you can see it start to get pastie. You can overdo the mixing and just end up with a paste so you stop just as the meat starts to bind.

 

[capretta]

cool, good tip, thanks once again andrew..

 

[Fents]

andrew very nice stuffer - is it an ebay one?

we have been looking at these recently? your thoughts?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-SAUSAGE-STUFFER...=item518e2d6199

 

[AndrewQLD]

andrew very nice stuffer - is it an ebay one?

we have been looking at these recently? your thoughts?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-SAUSAGE-STUFFER...=item518e2d6199

That's the next size up from mine Fents, I have the 5l version. These are really well made heavy duty stuffers and are all Stainless Steel very robust and strong and very easy to use. Both Greg and Scott were impressed with their performance.
You can't go wrong with one of these.

Andrew

 

[brettprevans]

andrew very nice stuffer - is it an ebay one?

we have been looking at these recently? your thoughts?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-SAUSAGE-STUFFER...=item518e2d6199

*cough* bulk buy *cough* h34r:

anyways a real question, im ready to order casings (im going natural), just need to work out where im buying them from and how much to buy?

I know there are a few stockists: Master Butcher Co-op & EAM Sales in QLD, Bake & Brew in SA

Troy & Fents - where do you boys get your from? internet or local butcher?

 

[Fents]

*cough* bulk buy *cough* h34r:

anyways a real question, im ready to order casings (im going natural), just need to work out where im buying them from and how much to buy?

I know there are a few stockists: Master Butcher Co-op & EAM Sales in QLD, Bake & Brew in SA

Troy & Fents - where do you boys get your from? internet or local butcher?

we get ours at the same butcher we buy our meat from at Preston Markets.

i've found natuarl casings are the go for BBQ snags and the non natural ones for salami's works well. looking at andrews pics i'd say he does the same.