Making Sausages

Ponster

Well after living here for over 8 years now I've decided that it's silly of me to continue buying Irish sausages in Paris in the special ex-pat stores and pay up to €5 for a half-pound. I don't buy them often (once a month) but there are loads of times that I wish i had one for cooking or just with an egg in he morning, but not at that price !

Has anyone tried making them before? I'm sure I'll find many recipes on the 'net if I look but how many of these will taste like an Irish sausage?

Anything special I should be putting in besides pork meat?


When I do search all I can find are ideas such as http://thefoody.com/meat/irishsausages.html which involve adding ginger and cloves but is better than the one that asked for 2 glasses of white wine!

How the hell do Dennys make theirs !

CJhaughey

Well I have made plenty of sausages,but the last thing I would try to imitate is a Denny sausage!
If you are really trying to get an authentic processed sausage taste try mixing plenty of fat with rusk and finely minced pork.
I can't give you exact quantities but I can assure you that anything you make yourself will be much better than denny sausages;)
try a mix of 20%fat, 30% rusk and 50 percent finely minced pork, stuff it into small casings probably the same as merguez casings which should be available in most charcuteries in paris.
edit:
try this recipe I had on my hard drive.
BREAKFAST SAUSAGE
Ground pork 1.0 lb
Salt (Diamond Crystal) 0.5 tbsp
Powdered sage 0.6 tsp
Summer savory 0.4 tsp
Nutmeg 0.2 tsp
Marjoram 0.7 tsp
Ground black pepper 0.3 tsp

rubadub

Ponster wrote:

€5 for a half-pound.

Jesus, why not eat fillet steak instead!

The secret to Dennys are the snouts and trotters.

You are going to need sausage casings/skin. The type of place that sells that probably has far better sausages than you could make anyway.

Ponster

Thanks for the advise guys. I'll give that 'Denny's Taste" a miss then

rubadub, you can't buy sausages in France because they don't make them. You can get merguez and such examples but nothing in the world that you'd consider eating for breakfast

CJhaughey

Have you got a sausage making machine Ponster?
I would imagine that they would be fairly easily got in Paris, I got mine from Lidl in a special , I think it cost something like 50 euro or so.

Ponster

I don't and I'm having a little trouble finding them over here. Theer's no problem in getting a professional one for about €280 from restaurant supply stores but a simple home-made one isn't the type of thing that the French buy everyday it seems

Buy I'll pick one up even if I have to go via ebay. All I need to do now is figure out what the hell "rusk" is in French

CJhaughey

Just use breadcrumbs if you can't get rusk
Have a look at this french site, it has manual mincers that would be suitable for occasional sausage making;)
http://www.cuisine-french.com/cgi/mdc/l/en/boutique/produits/hachoir_porkert/index.html

Ponster

Mad !

I just came along to say that I had found something and it turns out to be from the same site that you found


http://www.cuisine-french.com/cgi/mdc/l/en/boutique/produits/lte-poussoir_saucisson.html

CJhaughey

Thats a stuffer, you still need to mince the meat.
The pokert ones have an attachment that you put on the front and just feed the meat in to fill the casing.
The stuffers are good if you are doing a whole pile of sausage , for you I would say get the smallest hand mincer and a set of sausage tubes, cost less than 50 euro , thats only 10 1/2 lb packs of dennys finest;)

noby

Ressurrecting an old one here.

I've been thinking about getting into sausage making, and you appear to be the resident expert, CJ (although there may be others).
I've looked at the basic mincer on sausagemaking.org (£29.99) and hog casings (£12.99), free delivery. Am I right in saying this, along with ingredients obviously, is all I need to get going? The mincer comes with filling tubes.

CJhaughey

Yep thats all you need to get started.
I would say that you should look out for an electric mincer,mincing by hand gets old pretty quick

noby

I still manage the manual pasta maker, so I don't mind going the manual mincer route. Plus, an electric one is a bit more of an outlay for something I might try once and get bored with. Who knows, if I stick with it, I might upgrade.

Hopefully I'll order them inthe next week or so. If you've any more tips I'm all ears.

CJhaughey

I use rindless pork belly and I don't use rusk at all.
Good quality natural casings are much better than the collagen type, however poor quality natural casings can be thick and rubbery when cooked.
Oil the outside of the tube so the casing slides off easily.
I have read that you should soak the natural casing in water for a while to remove salt,I found that running water through it for 3 mins was enough.

noby

Thanks for that. When I get round to it I'll let you know how I get on. I was going to order rusk as I was ordering, but I wasn't sure how essential it was. I've heard of breadcrumbs being used instead.

CJhaughey

Just make sure that you have enough fat in the sausage, too little will result in a dry and tasteless sausage.
I would aim for around 20% fat in a pork mince mix.
It sounds horrible but a lot is lost in the cooking process.
Try making sausages with lean pork and you will find them dry.
It isn't necessary to have rusk but a little can stretch the mix and can absorb cooking juices which make the sausage hold it's moisture.

Minder

Not that I am trying to dissuade anyone from making their own sausages, but buy a batch of Dennys or others and freeze them.

Here's a question - should a breakfast sausage have herbs in ? I saw a recipe earlier that contained sage. For me, a herby sausage with breakfast is just wrong.

We used to get sausages from Caprani's in Bray main street - I think Tesco do them now. All meat, no herbs but they do have a bite to them - I think it comes from Jamaica pepper or all spice berries.

noby

Not that I am trying to dissuade anyone from making their own sausages, but buy a batch of Dennys or others and freeze them.

Not sure what you're getting at here, unless that was aimed at the OP.
I agree on the overly 'herby' sausages though, wouldn't be my choice for breakfast.

Minder

Found this website while looking for saltpetre - good forum on sausage making

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/

noby

I've been reading that myself. I'm getting the mincer from them too.

The Sweeper

I think what Minder's getting at is the concept of trouble vs satisfaction.

For instance, I know Bonkey's a sworn advocate of making his/her (its?) own fresh pasta. Now I've never tried to make my own fresh pasta, but I baulk at it from a time perspective.

I can:

a) Research the recipe, purchase the specialised flour, get the other bits and pieces (...an egg. Look you people, it's mid-Winter here and our six chickens are off the lay. You've no idea how valuable a resource 'an egg' is in this house.)
b) Possibly purchase one of those pasta rolling machines (is that compulsory?)
c) Do whatever combo jazz needs to be done and create fresh pasta.
d) Cook it.

Or I can:

a) Go to the supermarket and buy a packet of fresh egg pasta.
b) Cook it.

Now you may say to me "sure you can do that with everything", but fact is only eat fresh pasta about once a month if even, which is a major factor in why I can't be bothered making my own.

I'd love to have a go at making sausages, because (a) I eat them more than I eat pasta and (b) you can't get a bloody decent sausage in Australia full stop. However, I don't know if I'd go to the trouble to make sausages exclusively for breakfast.

...because I don't eat breakfast.

Basically... what's my point?

Oh yeah. There are some manufactured things that, in order to supercede the manufacturing process, I'd need to be really convinced that what I'll churn out myself will be sufficiently:

a) cost effective
b) tasty
c) time saving
d) fulfilling

That I'll bother superceding the manufacturing process to make them myself.

One of those things would be making my own sausages.

UNLESS, they really are fabulous?

noby

Well, I plan on mine being fabulous.

I know where you, and Minder, are coming from. Yes it's often less convenient/cost effective to make certain things from scratch, but it's also fun. I bake bread from time to time. I could buy a loaf for a euro, or less, but have none of the satisfaction.
I make pasta, but not nearly as much as I should to justify buying the machine. (oh, and the machine isn't essential either. Roll out your pasta dough as flat as you want/can, roll it into a cylinder, chop it. Hey presto - tagliatelle (sp)). Two eggs and 200g flour makes a hell of a lot of pasta.

So now I'm going to have a go at sausages. Hopefully it'll be fun and a little cost effective, when you compare like with like. A price comparison with a 'premium' sausage might be fairer, as I plan on using good quality ingredients, such as pork belly etc.
It's the same with brewing beer. Yes I could get a box of miller for a tenner, but that's not a fair comparison. The beer I brew, with good quality ingredients is more comparable to the €3 a bottle stuff in off-licences; and I don't mean that in an arrogant way.


Anyway, if it all goes pear-shaped, look out for a slightly used mincer on e-bay next week!

The Sweeper

Now see beer-brewing I can understand. Because I probably consume more beer than anything else.

I shall use the beer metaphor from here onwards to understand pasta and sausages.

CJhaughey

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

UNLESS, they really are fabulous?

Thats partly why I make them, because they taste so damn good!
Once you have eaten your own sausages you will find it very hard to go back to eating shop brought snags.
I liken the commercial sausage to eating a piece of old sponge soaked in fat and red food colouring to make it look like meat.
Truly there is a world of difference between homemade and commercial in the sausage field.
The OTHER big reason is in your own sausages you know what you are putting in the sausage.
Pork belly (rindless) is €5.97 a kilo here, A 300g pack of premium snags is running around the €4.00 mark
Thats a big difference in my book.

_blank_

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

you can't get a bloody decent sausage in Australia full stop.

Have you tried the beef sausages?

Woolies do a very nice Peppered Beef one (at least they did when I lived in Melbourne, I lived on the things), I'd love it if I could get decent beef sausages here in Ireland, in convenient places.

noby

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

I shall use the beer metaphor from here onwards to understand pasta and sausages.

You see I use the beer metaphor to understand everything. No, wait, I use beer to understand everything.

Anyway, after a slight hitch over the cost of carriage, my mincer and hog casings are on the way.

BaZmO*

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

b) Possibly purchase one of those pasta rolling machines (is that compulsory?)

Not compulsory at all. Just think of all those Italian Mamas that have made pasta for centuries. You wouldn't catch them using a pasta maker. But having said that, they are by definition, a pasta maker themselves.

As for the effort/value argument, apparently fresh pasta freezes quite well.

On the subject of sausages and the OP's comment that he wanted to make sausages similar to Denny sausages. Urgghhh!! The best Irish style breakfast sausages are Superquinn's own brand. Absolutely scrumpdiddlelyumptious!!!

Personally I'm not a huge fan of Gourmet type sausages that have a really high meat content, have 2 and you get a dose of the meat sweats!!
Or maybe it's just that I'm used to the ones with a slightly higher fat content. I'd love to try homemade ones though.

noby

As for the effort/value argument, apparently fresh pasta freezes quite well.

Indeed it does. I freeze portion size, er, portions. Pop them into boiling water, ready in a couple of minutes.

Minder

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

I think what Minder's getting at is the concept of trouble vs satisfaction.

I originally commented on the OPs desire to replicate a Denny sausage rather than buying and freezing the coveted banger. I doubt that the various pig parts that make it into a Denny banger would be available in a retail environment - and what is the correct proportion of sawdust ? Not to mention rusk, spice, fat, water, salt.

But making sausages has always been something that I wanted to try. I recently bought a Moulinex Mincer that comes with a sausage attachment. Bought it to make lean lamb mince for kebabs, but now that I have a viable resource for the rusk, spices, hog casings etc - I will make the effort.

Trouble vs satisfaction ? It will always be easier to get the commercially available product rather than make it, be it bread, pasta or bangers. But the satisfaction of making something new and it working is immeasurable. Take homemade pasta vs the fresh shop-bought variety. Homemade wins everytime for me. The lightness and versatility are never surpassed by the supermarket variety.

I have a pasta machine - but that's because I am a kitchen gadget addict rather than an avid pasta maker.

One question to those who are practised at making saussies - what quality of meat are you using ? Over-the-counter pork bellies from Tesco or an organically reared beast from specialist suppliers ?

noby

I agree with all that, Minder.
One question, your viable resource, is that in the UK? I am buying from sausagemaking.org. They charge a flat £20 for carriage, which is fine when you're buying a mincer etc. (although they had told me carriage would be free, then, after consulting an atlas, changed their mind. They offered to ship for £10, which is fair enough), but it seems that if I need to buy more hog casings down the road the £20 will apply, which is excessive.
I didn't order rusk, and it seems there are alternatives, and I intend to make up my own spice mixes. It would be nice if the casings could be sourced more locally.

From the forum over-the-counter Tesco pork belly/shoulder seems to be the meat of choice. We have a good local pork and bacon butcher, so I'll probably buy from him. Not organic, but good meat.

Minder

Noby - I am using Sausagemaking.org. Haven't checked delivery charges, am living in London so hoping the charges won't be too high.

Will try a few recipies with supermarket meats - if it works out I might try with some organic online sources.

noby

Ah right. Didn't realise you were in London. They have free delivery in the UK.

Minder

Placed my first order for sausage ingredients from sausagemaking.org. Hog casings, spices, cures and rusk. Just need some good quality pork and we're away.

noby

Good stuff.
I had a look in Tesco yesterday. They have grand pieces of shoulder for around €5-€6. It states the % fat on the label, which is handy. Although, I'll stick to the butchers for the first go.

Still waiting for my mincer and casings to arrive.

noby

Well my first batch of sausages are sitting in the fridge. I went into the butcher on Friday, and he didn't have any shoulder, so made up some pork tornado (lean) with 25% belly fat mixed through it.
The mincer and casings arrived Monday, so gave it a bash lastnight. Stuck to a simple recipe - pork, breadcrumbs, water and seasoning (salt, pepper, nutmeg).

Gave the meat a mince first, then mixed through all the ingredients, fitted my stuffer tube and casings, and stuffed away. I imagined I would need two pairs of hands, but I quickly got into a routine and the stuffing went fine. I tried my best to link the sausages at the end. Got about 15 out of roughly 2.5lb.
At least I know what's for tea tonight.

The Sweeper

Let us know how they taste and how the texture compares!

noby

Well, I actually had a sneak preview lastnight. They held together well, very meaty' but tasted a little under-seasoned. Hopefully the blooming in the fridge will help a little.
I still have half my pork left, so might try a more Toulouse style tonight.

CJhaughey

Great! you are now on the way to becoming a sausage freak!
I have a good recipe for Italian sausages that is very tasty.
Scale it back to your needs I usually use 1/3 of the mix.
It is important to use coarse salt as the fine stuff doesn't seem to work as well.

* 15 pounds pork belly
* 2 ¾ cups very cold red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon works nicely)
* 7 tablespoons coarse salt
* 7 tablespoons fennel seeds
* 6 tablespoons ground black pepper
* 1 tablespoon ground coriander seed
* 3 teaspoons chilli flakes
* 2 teaspoons oregano
* 1½ teaspoons garlic powder
* 1½ teaspoons sugar
* 1½ teaspoons caraway seed
* 1 teaspoon MSG

noby

Thanks. I might give that a go.

I made up a second batch lastnight with the other half of the pork. Upped the seasoning a bit, and threw in some sage and parsley, and a little less breadcrumbs.

CJhaughey

I passed through Dungarvan last night, If I had known I would have asked for a taste!!:D
I don't bother with breadcrumbs or rusk, pork belly is so cheap and I am making them for the taste not to sell.

BaZmO*

CJhaughey wrote:

I don't bother with breadcrumbs or rusk, pork belly is so cheap and I am making them for the taste not to sell.

But would a full meat sausage (Ooerr!!) not be too eh....meaty?

noby

BaZmO* wrote:

But would a full meat sausage (Ooerr!!) not be too eh....meaty?

That was my thinking. Plus I thought it helped absorb the juices, for a more succulent sausage.
Anyway, lastnight I put 1 1/2oz into 2lb of pork, so it's not exactly half full of filler.

CJ, where do you get your casings? I got Hog casings, but I wuoldn't mind getting lamb ones, for a thinner sausage. A bit pricey for shipping from the UK unless I put in a big order.

CJhaughey

The last ones I got were from Ebay and TBH they are not very good.
They are quite thick and don't fry very well.
I think the best ones I got were from a mate of mine who gets them from France.
I think you can get sheep casings from German Ebay sellers quite cheaply, I think 25-28mm are probably the size you are looking for?
The hog casing tends to run 30-35 and can be a bit big for a breakfast sausage.
If you are friendly with a local craft butcher just ask if you can buy some collagen casings they work pretty well.
A too meaty sausage doesn't exist in my book!

noby

A too meaty sausage doesn't exist in my book!

Dr.Atkins would be proud of me at the moment.

With my limited German, I've found an e-bay supplier. The sizes seem to range from 18mm to about 28mm. Works out a lot cheaper than the UK supplier by the looks of it.

Minder

noby wrote:

A too meaty sausage doesn't exist in my book!

Dr.Atkins would be proud of me at the moment.

With my limited German, I've found an e-bay supplier. The sizes seem to range from 18mm to about 28mm. Works out a lot cheaper than the UK supplier by the looks of it.

Do you have a link or a name for the German supplier ?

CJHaughty - I bought some hog casings recently but they remained in the box for a couple of weeks before I was able to get them into a fridge.

They are sealed and salted - should I use them or get some new ones ?

CJhaughey

Salted casings last pretty well refrigerated or not, I would always try and keep them in the fridge but they shouldn't go off after a week or two at room temp.
I would use them, just rinse them well inside and out.
Keep the rest in a resealable plastic tub with a good handful of coarse salt on top.
s

frobisher

Great thread! I've been considering doing this and giving them as gifts or even trying to sell them from local shops. Has anyone else tried this?

CJhaughey

Yep, gave plenty away and everyone who tried them liked them.
One guy liked them so much he went off and got himself a mincer/sausage maker!
Selling them may be problematic depending on how the environmental health officers (EHO) are in your area.
Some are very hot on meat products others don't give a damn.

olaola

Attempted my first sausage making extravaganza last night.
Was well impressed with the results - will be repeating it many times.
Made a plain sage (fab) and leek and onion (didn't try that yet) and some chorizo & saussicson (will tell you what they're like in a few weeks)
We added breadcrumbs to the sausages and still found them very meaty.

Now - I was over in a friends, where we minced our own (had some problems with the machine) so it took a while. How did the grinders/fillers from sausagemakingking.org turn out??
I would consider purchasing one if they were worth it.