Summer Sausage - any recommendations?

[wahoowad]

My recent Cabelas catalog has a couple pages of tasty looking smoked meats, of which the smoked sausages has really caught my eye. I know very little about good sausage - my experience is limited to cheap Hickory Farms gift packs at Christmas time. I don't know if the quality of the sausages in the Cabelas catalog are really good, or just high priced mass produced sausage with a nice label. Anybody ever ordered any of their smoked meats? Anybody have an alternative source I might try? I think I'd like to get a sampler pack of different ones, possibly with some wild game varieties like venison and elk.

 

[Gunner]

Check locally, you may find a butcher not to far that smokes his own stuff.

Finally stopped into a place outside of town I had been meaning to for almost a year. Great little place.... absolute heaven for lovers of smoked and cured meats, you can taste everything before you buy, prices are good too, save the shipping support a local.

 

[Hogwildz]

I was buying at local stores, these lil spicy beef stick snacks. Kinda like slim jims. The I found out the ones I been buying are made here in Lebanon, PA. I bought a bulk pack of 120 for $18.95 I lovem. They have all kinds of beef snacks, along with venison also.
Made a couple hundred pounds worth of kilbasa with my neighbor last spring. Put jalepeno peppers & cheddar cheese in some, pepperd others, and of course regular & cheese. Was good stuff, 40% pork/60% venison. Alot of work though.
Anyways, heres a link to the place in lebanon, you can order on their site. Not sure if they have sample packs or not. I get the spicy shorts in bulk.

http://www.choochoorsnacks.com/

Edit:
OK I don't think they have summer sausage, they do have some sample packs I believe.
My mouths watering so bad I just ordered the 2.1 pounder of spicy shorts. Damn I wantem!

 

[pskerrett]

Here in the upper midwest, we usually equate great sausages with Milwaukee (maybe it has something to do with all that beer.

But in any case, BAR-NONE the best summer sausage in Milwaukee is Usinger's. And you are in luck..

They have a webstore!

http://www.usinger.com/

My personal favorite is the Thueringer Summer. The Old-Style, Miller or Pabst sausage bottles are also a nice touch & make great unique gifts.

 

[wowchad]

I agree with the last post...go figure :smirk:

Another famous Milwaukee sausage is Klements, http://www.klements.com/
They have very good stuff too!

These are the people that have the racing sausages at the Miller Statium ball games. (broken link removed to http://www.klements.com/racing_sausages/index2.html)

I've been heavy on their Chorizo sausage lately. We just made a Taco pizza with it for the Packer game last week.

 

[packerfan]

As a life long milwaukee area resident, I do have to say that the Klements, and Usingers brands are good (I prefer Usinger) but the local butchers make the best. My favorite place to get great polish sausage is the C&R;Market, 3001 S. Ninth Place, 747-9158. It is some of the best stuff you can get, and they have all other types of home made sausage there as well. The sausage was a christmas tradition at my house when I was a kid, and after my dad moved to S Carolina I would send him a package of sausage every x-mas via overnight delivery in a cooler packed in dry ice. He sure did love getting that stuff from back home, and even shared some with his neighbors. (they loved it too) I still make the trip to the south side of Milwaukee a couple of times a year to get some for myself and it is as good as it ever was. I also think that the c&r;market will ship some for you as well. It's worth checking out!

 

[Gooserider]

If you are into German style sausages, there is a place Noack's Meat Products in Meriden CT that does really nice ones, they are a deli that my GF's family has been getting stuff at for as long as they've been in the US... It is pretty much standard that if they are coming up to see us in MA they will stop and get stuff on the way, or will get some of their things for at least one meal whenever we go down to see them.

They do pork products, so definitely not kosher if that's a concern, but really good sausages of the German sorts, smoked hams, turkeys, and other good items...

From their website:

Noack's Meat Products

Noack's is a USDA inspected producer of both smoked and fresh meat products made using traditional German techniques. A wide assortment of meat product is available, including sausages and hams in both smoked, fresh, and nitrite free forms. Our line of nitrite-free product is one of our fastest growing and most promising new developments and enhances our ever popular traditional smoked delicacies. People from all around who are looking for the best in healthy, fresh, and delicious meats have come to trust Noacks!
About Noack's

Since 1966 Noack’s has been smoking hams according to recipes from the Lake Constance area in the Black Forest portion of Germany, where our Master Smoker learned the art of smoking from the old masters. This will be our fourth decade of serving the New England area with the finest hams produced in the German tradition of sausage making and smoking under the supervision of the USDA. Noack’s hams are cured with a low salt brine and smoked over glimmering apple wood for up to 14 hours until they reach the perfection that is a trade mark of Noack’s. Help us enter the next millennium while celebrating our 34th year by giving us your suggestions and comments about our products and service.

Gooserider

 

[kenny chaos]

We used to sell "whole hog" sausage. The whole hog was used, not just the scraps. Unbeatable.