My first sausage-making venture

I've been interested in sausage making for some time now, but have never done anything about it, until now. A 5 lb pork shoulder roast caught my eye at the grocery store the other day so I bought it. The smallest recipe that I could find online was for starting with 10 lbs. of pork, so I just cut everything in half. I believe in starting off small and easy in most of my new ventures, and I thought that 5 lbs. was more than enough to start experimentation.

Stuffing sausage into casings is my goal, but I still have some equipment on order and have to make bulk sausage for now. I bought some casings at a local butcher shop yesterday but still need the sausage stuffing tubes for the KitchenAid.

Here is the recipe for 10 lbs of breakfast sausage that I used, cutting this in half for the 5 lbs of meat I had:

10-lbs ground pork
4-tbsp salt
1 3/4-tsp white pepper
3 1/2-tsp ground sage
2 1/2-tsp ground thyme
2 1/2-tsp nutmeg
2 1/2-tsp ground ginger
1/2-tsp red chili peppers flakes
1/2-cup cold water

I cut the meat from the bone-in shoulder roast, and cut the meat into about 3 by 1 inch strips. These fit easily into the feeder of the KitchenAid meat grinder. Before I ground it, I put the pieces on a cookie sheet and placed the sheet in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes. Getting the meat COLD makes it easier to work with and helps prevent the fat from smearing in the cutter of the grinder.

After running the meat through the grinder, I mixed the spices and poured them into the meat. I put the spiced meat into the mixing bowl of the KitchenAid and mixed it all together using the bread hook.

Then I bagged the mix into one-pound bags and froze all but one of the bags, which I will use for breakfast tomorrow.

I had a small amount remaining and cooked two patties. It was very lean for sausage (low fat content) and it was VERY good. In future batches I will probably add pork fat to the meat, but for now this tasted fantastic.

Soon I should have the equipment for making links, and hope to be making Italian sausage links and bratwurst soon. I'm off from work this coming week after Christmas and hope to be posting more regarding sausage links, and more cheesemaking. I'm going to build my own cheese press and will let you know how that goes.