Making Sausage: Smoking Meat, Making Sausage, Making Cheese, Making Jerky, Brewing Beer, Canning, Dehydrating

Making Sausage

Sausage. That’s the kind of word that makes your mouth water and your tummy rumble. A wonderful mixture of meats and spices blended to perfection, slipped into a casing to be fried, baked, boiled, grilled or smoked. However you cook it - it’s wonderful stuff!

A lot of people stay away from sausages these days because of the high levels of salt, fats and who knows what else they put in it. Well there’s only one way to be sure and that’s to make your own! You need to control what you eat!

I love sausage but I don’t like all the fat and salt they put in it today. I’ve been making sausages since I was a kid. I remember the first time helping my Mama and a neighbor cranking away on the old bolt on the table grinder they had and what a pain is was. I wasn’t great sausage and they only tried it once but it was good. I was a lot also of work! Now we have electric grinders and stuffers and the internet to make the job very simple and easy to do.

Making home made sausages is easier than you might think BUT like most meats handle them with care!

Making sausage can be as simple and buying ground beef, pork, turkey or lamb from the local supermarket and mixing in some herbs and spices, making patties and cooking them.

You can purchase a grinder, grind your meats, mix in herbs and spices and stuff them into casings. It’s all up to you! To get started unless you already have the grinders and stuffers I recommend buying the meat already ground from you local market. Making sausage might not be your cup of tea so why spend the money on all that equipment before you figure out if you like it?

Okay, if you’re here you’re probably already hooked on making sausages and smoking food so we are going to show you how to use a vertical sausage stuffer:

stuffer canister adding casing

Vertical sausage Remove the canister Add sausage meat Put casing on the

stuffer from the stuffer to the canister stuffing tube

tying filling complete

Tie the end with cotton Turn the handle and Completed length

butchers string out comes the meat of sausage

If you’ve search the net looking for supplies you’ve noticed there are several different sizes of sausage casings available to make your sausages in. Most of them are listed in millimeters. What size sausage tube do you need for a certain size and type of casing? It can be a bit confusing and it’s not the same size as the casing or it would split wide open! We don’t want that so here’s a handy little chart I made to help:

Sausage Tubes and Casing Sizes
Stuffing Tube Size		Straight Stuffing Tube			Tapered Stuffing Tube
inches	mm	Collagen Casing	Hog Casing	Sheep Casing	Collagen Casing	Hog Casing	Sheep Casing
	8 mm	13 mm 14 mm 15 mm
3/8	9.5 mm	16 mm			16 mm
7/16	10 mm	16 mm 17 mm 18 mm 19 mm 21 mm	17 mm	18 - 20 mm 20 - 22 mm	19 mm 21 mm
	12 mm	22 mm 23 mm	21 - 23 mm	21 - 23 mm	22 mm 23 mm	21 - 23 mm	21 - 23 mm
1/2	13 mm	21 mm 23 mm		20 - 22 mm 22 - 24 mm	21 mm 23 mm 28 mm 30 mm		22 mm 24 mm
9/16	14 mm	24 mm 25 mm 28 mm 30 mm 32 mm	29 mm < 30 - 33 mm 31 - 34 mm	22 - 24 mm	24 mm 25 mm 28 mm 30 mm 32 mm		22 - 24 mm
5/8	16 mm	32 mm	30 - 33 mm 31 - 34 mm	24 - 26 mm	32 mm		27 mm 28 mm
11/16	17 mm	32 mm	31 - 34 mm 33 - 36 mm		32 mm		29 mm
3/4	19 mm	35 mm 38 mm	33 - 36 mm 35 - 38 mm		35 mm	32 mm 35 mm	24 - 26 mm
	22 mm	34 mm to 40 mm			34 mm to 40 mm
1	25 mm	50 mm	35 - 38 mm		50 mm
1 1/4	32 mm	65 mm	37 - 40 mm 41 - 44 mm		65 mm
1 3/4	45 mm	90 mm	41 - 44 mm		90 mm

NOTE: Tube sizes listed on the chart represent the largest tube recommended for a specific size casing. A smaller tube than that listed may also be used, but not a larger one. _Ó_{Deejay 2007}