Sausage making day

We finally got the meat all together for a two grinder 300 pounds of meat into sausage day.

Here is the evidence.

Sorry for the poor quality of images... Camera phone was what I had handy.

We also smoked two 25 pound hams.

Wow - all that sausage looks awesome. Is that an old chest freezer for a smoker or just something you built? What do you use for a firebox?

lowroad,

Head over to the ash can for the bbq thread....looks like you have some skills.

I will check out the barbecue thread!

As far as gear the smoker is actually a map case that I swapped an old rototiller for. The beauty of it is that there was never any plastic in it to pull out.

We use simple dowels with the ends notched to keep them in place and we hang the sausage rings on the dowels or we hang racks to place fish, hams, ribs etc on.

There is no fire box as I use a barbecue lid as my firepit in the bottom to get a good bed of coals going before putting unseasoned wood on the coals.

There is a small draft in the bottom and by controlling the lid closure with a wedge we can get a pretty good handle on the heat to smoke ratio.

We are really doing a hot smoke/bake in this unit.

I had no idea that there were two of us sausage makers on this forum, although I have never made more than abour 3 pounds at a time.

I have a small hand stuffer, I could never make anything like that impressive collection!

However, here is one of my home made sausages cooking on the open wood fire:

Wow Thats Awesome!

Holy crap....I am sure hungry....and you guys know I have a tapeworm......sure could eat some of that now......may have ta take some mylanta before bed though....gerd....

Where's the "Meatgrinder" forum?

300 lbs is a herculean task!

It is only a herculean task when you don't have two electric grinders and 4 adults and 4 kids working together on the process.

Bear in mind too that we bone out and trim all of the meat ahead of time and freeze it in pails ready to go for grinding and stuffing day.

That being said, we do sleep well the next couple of nights after a big day like that.

Someday we hope to set ourselves up to make more exotic sausage varieties such as cultured dry salamis and the like.

This weekend I will be swapping some of the sausage with a friend who is a well practised wine maker.

Tonight's supper was scrambled eggs from our chickens, home made bread toasted and the unsmoked fresh link sausages. Hmmm. I think I might need a snack before I head to bed for the night.

Just one hand grinder, and one stuffer, with me doing it all.

Everybody else seems to arrive when it's eating time.

I think I need to reorganise things a bit...........

We have been spoiled for a long time with the one grinder but know that we have two? Sheer luxury.

Between processing meat ourselves and keeping a massive garden we eat like kings..... And some of our friends do too as we share back and forth.

Lots of work but let me tell you there are very few things more satisfying that eating a meal in which virtually everything was produced within a mile of one's home.... Almost as satisfying as heating one's home with harvested within that same 1 mile radius.

We have a small orchard and cider press as well as a reasonable sized veg plot.
Last year we had half a pig (our mate owned the other half, before anybody asks) running in a mate's orchard, so we had a bit of processing in the Fall.

Pork and apple sausages with cider sauce are rather tasty.

But then most things are tasty when alcohol is added...............

Looking good! I need to turn some venison into good sausage here in a bit.

you two are not the only one on the forum that make sausage. hope to run through a couple hundred pounds of pork before the end of the month

I dont make sausage, but I eat it...keep the pictures coming! You gotta love food that looks like nunchucks.

Thanks. Now I'll starve all afternoon ya bastidge.

ya i didn't notice til after i posted how old the thread was.....just killing time and seeing if anyone had any good recipes in preparation of my next batch of sausage making

We made 150 lbs of deer/pork brats with cheddar cheese and peppers and onions and oh my god im getting hungry! I think ill set a package or two in the refrigerator to thaw for tomorrow night! Oh we split the brats 3 ways between my cousin, neighbor, and I
We are in the very beginning processes of fabricating a smaller smoker from a glass soda cooler with sliding doors.

Sent from my rooted and eclipse running X2--thanks nitro--

sounds like a recipe worth sharing....hint hint

Our other smokers are too big fir just 150 lbs of meat. We made this one-- our "big" smoker -- two years ago for a company cookout and to use for school fundraising.

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It's a sausage party around here.............