Making your own sausages

Kimia

Hello everyone. So we're living in Canada and my god do I miss Irish sausages. I'm thinking of making my own (am I crazy!). So any tips or advise? I can get good quality pork sausages here but they are too 'porky' if that makes sense. About 90% pork. Which some people would love but I miss that 'fatty' taste.

Any suggestions?

CJhaughey

Kimia wrote: »

Hello everyone. So we're living in Canada and my god do I miss Irish sausages. I'm thinking of making my own (am I crazy!). So any tips or advise? I can get good quality pork sausages here but they are too 'porky' if that makes sense. About 90% pork. Which some people would love but I miss that 'fatty' taste.

Any suggestions?

Easy to make basic sausages, I would get some good fatty belly pork and get it minced twice, add your salt/pepper/herbs and stuff away.
There is a very good book called Charcuterie by Michael Ruhl. It covers all kinds of sausage making and being North American might help you with suppliers.

the beer revolu

A touch of mace is the Irish breakfast sausage flavour.

Kimia

The spice? I wonder what kind of quantity would be needed.

My favourite sausages would be between Superquinns (obviously) and Aldi's premium sausages. I have no interest in other herbs etc - just traditional.

Anyone else have experience making sausages?

Minder

A lot of the commercial sausages we buy in Ireland and the UK contain rusk and water. So you need recipes that reflect that. Rusk can be bought from the same suppliers that sell casings. The rusk can be as much as 1/3rd of the total weight, but trial and error is best here.

A couple of things I encountered when making sausages. Casings come salted and in very long lengths (they keep forever). Casings need rinsing in cold water before using. All the recipes will suggest sliding the casing over the tap and letting the water run through it. Make sure you put the plug in the sink or the loose end will disappear down the plug hole.

Use meat that is has been left for an hour or two to come to room temperature before mincing. Chop the meat well and trim the connective tissue away - the stringy bits don't mince well and just clog up the screens. don't be shy of chopping the meat by hand first - the mincer does a good job but smaller pieces make life easier.

Room temperature will also make stuffing the casings so much easier. Plan ahead so you have enough time to mince all the meat and stuff the casings because if you have to refrigerate the minced meat, it will be very difficult to pass through a mincer to stuff casings a day later.

For a breakfast sausage, the spices I'd use would be mace or nutmeg, black pepper or ground allspice berries. The allspice is reminiscent of the sausages that Caprani used to make in Bray main street - a lovely peppery flavour.

Minder

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewforum.php?f=1

for recipes and a working forum where you can get some answers