Breakfast Sausage

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Nick Prochilo

Chef Extraordinaire
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I got a meat grinder for my bday. After reading posts here about home sausage making I needed to try it out. I didn't have any casings so I figured a Jimmy Dean type of breakfast sausage would be a good start. Whipped up 5 pounds in around 1/2 hour yesterday.


 
wittdog said:
How did the sausage come out..and how did you like the grinder..
The sausage was great, as is the grinder. Incredibly quick with the grinding of the meat.

Larry Wolfe said:
Bet you'll be making some awesome fatties in the future!!!!
That's what I was thinking when I was cooking breakfast this morning!
 
Great looking sausage, and thanks for PM the link for the grinder. Guess I'll have to be dropping alot of hints over the next month or so...You know, the happy winter solstice thing [smilie=a_wizard.gif]
 
Damn. Another "make your own sausage" thread. So, what's a guy really need? A grinder and a stuffer? Last spring my local grocery had butts on sale for $0.99/lb. I went in to stock the freezer and found the meat case empty. The butcher said he had another van coming in and to return the next day. I expressed surprise that there were that many smokers around. He said there aren't that many, all the butts were purchased by folks that make sausage.

Griff
 
Captain Morgan said:
Nick, I know it was your first time, but do you think at some point it would be better or cheaper than store bought?

Jimmy Deans breakfast sausage around here is $4 or $5 per pound. Total cost for 4 pounds sausage, homemade $8.00. Yeah if your gonna figure the cost of the grinder, it will take about 40 pounds of breakfast sausage to pay for that. Quality will always be better, as your controling what your putting in. My son gave me a hand making it yesterday which in my eyes is worth the cost of a million grinders! I can't wait to make other sausages now, Witt gave me all sorts of advise that will surely help! I'll be asking him more & more also John Pen and Pigs will be getting calls from me. Yeah, wait until you see the fattie that's being preped in my mind! :LOL:
 
Cappy it's a lot cheaper to make your own sausage but it can be a lot of work as well...and the quality is so much better....around here they charge extra to grind pork...like .50 lb extra...after a few uses the grinder pays for it self...Griff you don't need much just a grinder and stuffer (I use a seperate stuffer cuz I think the lectric grinder is a pain to stuff with)...when you start to do the below BBQ temp smoking..a couple of speical ingredients (cure, binder (if you chose to use it) and fermento for peperoni..and such) ...and that's that...
 
In these parts you can buy premade sausage in the following flavors:
Breakfast (name brand and store brand)
Brauts (name brand and store brand)
Choriso (name brand)
Italian (name brand and store brand)
and just plain ground pork.

If you make you own, the possiblities are nearly endless. And you can adjust the seasonings to your taste.

A while back I made some Knockwurst, had at least 10 folks ask me where I bought them cause they wanted some :LOL:

Anyway, a good book with hundreds of recipees is The Sausage-Making Cookbook by Jerry Predika. No fancy color photos but it was around ten dollars.

You want meat with alot of fat. If the meat's been trimmed too close and you don't add some fat you won't like the results (too dry).

The hardest thing I found about making is sausage is finding the casings. Been buying in Boulder at $15/lb, just found a butcher shop in Longmont that sells them at $10/lb.

If you're into bulk sausage, the point is moot.
 
(Cappy fights the urge to get into another line of cooking requiring spending money on equipment he can't fit into his kitchen......fighting....
fighting......)
 
When I checked the supermarkets out here, they looked at me like I was crazy. Then they told me that they don't make sausage in the supermarkets anymore, some central location bs.

Now you can buy faux casings that store forever. Haven't tried them though.

I figure about 7' of hog casing to 5# of meat. That will add about $3.00 to the price of your project.
 
Nick Prochilo said:
wittdog said:
My local Super Markets carry casings....

I'm gonna check again, but I don't think so. Maybe I can order them from sausage maker.
The sausage maker carrys them but then are $...try going to an ethnic neighborhood...FYI the casings around here come in little white tubs...my guess is you won't find them at Sams or Costco..but at butcher shop or..grocery store..good luck
 
The butcher shop where I've been buying them puts them in one of those little white tubs with H20 added. $15/lb for mostly water. Just don't seem right, thats why the next batch will come the Butcher Frank in Longmont.
 
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