Homemade Sausage Making

My main hobby is homebrewing,and I've been doing that for 22 years. I occasionally make mead, wine, and fruit wines. (I'd love to try distilling, but since it's illegal and I don't want the IRS to seize my house, I won't.)

I'm also in the process of learning how to ferment vegetables. I haven't done this yet, but I'm reading this book on it .

What industrious things do you do for fun beside stuffing meat into casings, and stuffing sausage into your mouths "?

Last weekend I bottled a batch I call "Patriotic Sum'Bitch" because it's brewed on Memorial Day weekend. That'll be ready to drink on Labor Day.

Here's a previous batch of my homebrew, modeled after a now-defunct beer called "Double Diamond".



I have no artistic talent, but I can cut and paste pictures. The guys on the label are two of my three brewing and sausage making "assistants". (They prefer sausage making. ) The other assistant is a cat... he gets his own labels.

You could distill small batches on your kitchen stove. Six quarts would yield at least a quart of distillate.

ssorllih wrote:You could distill small batches on your kitchen stove. Six quarts would yield at least a quart of distillate.

The thought has occurred to me. I even have a book on it. But I'm a law-abiding person, and this is illegal in a way that the punishment isn't worth the cost. It's not like I don't have any other hobbies.

Hi,
Home hobby distilling is very popular in Australia, brewshops are everywhere and the legality is questionable.
But I can guarantee that if the Government clamps down on all this illegal stuff, we certainly will have an armed uprising here, certainly in Queensland.
I am a very small hobby distiller, beer and liqueur maker and I enjoy my hobby very much, my friends like it even better as I give it all away.
Do let me know how you go with distilling vegetables? I like to taste spinach with a kick!!!!!!!
Regards,
Jan.

laripu wrote:My main hobby is homebrewing,and I've been doing that for 22 years. I occasionally make mead, wine, and fruit wines. (I'd love to try distilling, but since it's illegal and I don't want the IRS to seize my house, I won't.)

They won't take your house. They will however show up with a helicopter and three SWAT units and several squad cars and a couple of black Expeditions with dark windows and your neighbors will think they just discovered Bin Laden holed up at your house. You will gain notoriety by being on the front page of the newspaper and it will cost you about $6700 when its all said and done with.

So with that in mind, its much cheaper to just go to New Zealand or South Africa to do your distilling like every law abiding person I know does. Besides, everyone knows untaxed american whisky will blind you or give you Jack's Leg. I suspect its due to the utter smoothness of it but I don't really know cause I'm just repeating what I heard.

Butterbean, $6700 is still too much of a penalty to pay for pursuing a hobby. I will make Limoncello, though, starting with Everclear. Nothing illegal there.

Jan, it won't be distilling vegetables, just fermenting them. A good example is live unpasteurized sauerkraut. I don't know enough about fermenting sausage, but I suspect the same bacteria at work. Probably lactobacillus. Any smart weenies out there know for sure?

It should be fine. My mother used to make sour pickles the natural way, and although they looked frightening, they were really good. But I still have a lot to learn in fermenting veggies and making sausage (even though Mrs laripu and I enjoyed some nice sausages this evening).

Heck, I'm still learning about beer after 22 years of brewing, 18 years all-grain.

Laripu- Since you're a homebrewer, I have to plug my buddy's new homebrew shop- www.chicagobrewwerks.com

I know you're in Florida, but he has the BEST selection of grain around here, and he has some great deals on shipping. He has a brick and mortar store but also does a lot of business online too. He finally got past a bunch of red tape the county threw up that was going to prevent him from staying open as a retail shop, but now he's back in full swing. I'm also trying to convince him to carry sausage making supplies so I could just order what I need through him!

Nice labels, Laripu. Here's the tag from a recent Kölsch recipe. Nowadays, I keg 'em to avoid the trouble of bottles.

The diaper pail refers to the enamel pot that I used for many years to do my wort boiling. It has served us faithfully in several capacities over the years.

Laripu, some things possess such beauty they are priceless.



BTW - The wise man removes his still before he removes a nagging woman from his home.

el Ducko wrote:Here's the tag from a recent Kölsch recipe. Nowadays, I keg 'em to avoid the trouble of bottles.
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I used to keg, back in the 90's. When I moved from Montreal to Tampa, I left my fridge with the taps back there, and bottled since. I like the portability, and not being dependent on CO2; tanks. Plus we have neighborhood driveway parties about once a month on Friday nights; everyone takes turns hosting, and everyone brings food and drink. I like bringing bottles. (And eventually sausages. )

From your label I see you speak some German. Maybe you'll like the label below. The way to think about this is that the (fictional) "Ignatz Laripu" character is an immigrant in every country in which he resides, and therefore speaks no language perfectly. Hence the grammatical and spelling errors in both German and English in the little rhymes. For the non-brewers, Spalt is a German hop variety grown near the German town of Spalt. (Like Yakima hops are grown in... well, you get it.)

I think I may have to make this beer again this year.

Butterbean wrote:Laripu, some things possess such beauty they are priceless.

BTW - The wise man removes his still before he removes a nagging woman from his home.

Right on both counts.

The woman does not nag. But if the IRS busts us for distilling, she will remove herself.
A wise man knows when to quit while he's ahead. And still has a head.

Also, the only reason I'd want to distill is for the technical geeky fun. I only drink onedrink a day and that's almost always a beer.

By the way I've also made kvass and orange bitters, if anyone is interested. (For both the alcohol is around 1.5% ABV and they're bottled in 2-liter pop bottles. They must stay regfrigerated, or the bottles will burst due to excess CO2 being created.)

"neighborhood driveway parties about once a month on Friday nights;..."
Ex-son-in-law had an old full-size chest freezer with temperature controller and post-mounted taps on it. He kept it on a 4-wheel furniture dolly. Come monthly Friday nights, he'd unplug, push it into the cul-de-sac, and plug it into a neighbor's house. May I suggest the same? (Just be sure to mount taps in the top, not the sides, so you don't cut into a refrigerant line.) His downfall came when he discovered that he could substitute commercial brew, and quit his home brew activities. How embarrassing!

I built a similar rig from a small freezer, but already had two side-mount taps from a refrigerator rig that "died in a flood." I solved the problem by gluing a six-pack-size plastic cooler to the top, cutting a BIG hole through the top between the two with a saws-all, and mounting the taps in its side. It's on a furniture dolly. When we have people over and are using our outdoor kitchen, I'm always the one who brings the beer!

Düsseldorf brings back happy memories of altbier. We visited nearby Krefeld many times, and I lived and worked in Leverkusen and Köln for a bit. Thus the kölsch recipe, the result of an argument with some of my Texas light beer drinking buddies about "Germans don't have light beer."

Is your "orange bitters" brew similar to some of the Belgian beers? ...orange peel and coriander? ...love to see the recipe. Be sure and specify the sausage to eat with it. Otherwise, ol' Chuckwagon will cry "foul" (or some other four letter word), and we'll be way off topic.

...got some good German wurst recipes?

el Ducko wrote:...got some good German wurst recipes?

Not yet. "I am only an egg." I'm very new to this hobby. I haven't got "primary bind" down yet. In fact I only learned that term a week ago, or so.

The orange bitter is essentially a soft drink, not a beer. It is an original recipe. Only one other person has made it from my instructions. (And he's in the UK.) I call it "Kin". (The inspiration was Italian bitters, and chinotto. Maybe "Kin-not" would be a better name, because it's not anything like chinotto. )

You get some Seville oranges, shred 'em in the food processor, get a bunch of spices and boil that for a few minutes, water to about 1 gallon (+ one 2-liter bottle of tonic water). Cool to room temp. Ferment that mess with an ale yeast. There's not much sugar in the oranges to make alcohol, which is ok. (The boil is to kill bacteria. Acidity takes care of the rest.)

Then strain it through a clean cheesecloth, and wring out the cheesecloth to get as much liquid as you can. (You can boil the cheesecloth, and wash your hands first! )

You collect the liquid, leaving solid matter behind. (My wife took that stuff and added cranberries, then made marmalade: incredibly good too!)

Now the post-fermentation liquid goes into a small 3-gallon carboy, and top up to the neck with good (de-chlorinated) water. Let it sit for a couple of weeks to settle, then bottle with lots of sugar, to not only carbonate, but sweeten, and it's very bitter so it will need it. You bottle in plastic bottles, because you can tell they're carbonated when the bottles get hard. Refrigerate immediately or they'll leak or blow up or something. It makes 11 liters of a very bitter citrus drink.

NB... some people are advised not to eat grapefruit because it may interfere with heart medication. Seville oranges may have the same effect. If you take medication, check on the internet and with your doctor.

Details and quantities:

4 liters of water
1 2-liter bottle of regular tonic water with quinine
5 gm coriander seed, whole (about 1 tbsp)
2 gm whole cloves (about 1 tsp)
8 gm ground cinnamon (cassia)
4 gm mint (dried is ok)
11 gm ground nutmeg
20 gm caraway
8 gm Fennel seeds, whole (about 1 tbsp)
1 gm star anise
8 gm aniseed
2 gm cardamom seeds, whole (black or green or white... it's all ok)
8 sour oranges or Seville oranges, chopped fine, or shredded in a food processor.
* Boil spices for 20 minutes, add oranges and boil very lightly for a further 10 minutes.
* Cool to room temperature (so you don't kill the yeast). The pot in a sink full of water works well. Change the water a few times, then add ice to the water the last time.
* Ferment with ale yeast or wine yeast (not bread yeast!). Lallemande or Nottingham are good bets. Fement until your airlock bubbles less than once per minute. (About 5 to 7 days.)
* When done, strain through cheesecloth and transfer to secondary. Top up to 11 liters. Wait two weeks to let it settle.
* Siphon it off the yeast into a bottling bucket.
* Batch prime with 400 grams of sugar.
* Bottle in PET bottles (Five 2-liter and one 1-liter.).
* When bottles get hard, refrigerate immediately! (This will be anywhere from 1 to 3 days.)

As soon as it's cold, it's ready to drink. If it's too bitter, mix with water. Or water and vodka.

EDIT to add: Eat some sausage with it !! Since it's an Italian aperitif, how about spicy Italian sausage with lots of caraway. A side dish of creamed leek. French baguette.

I rarely drink but I do think I need to try beer making. Sounds interesting.

Butterbean wrote:I rarely drink but I do think I need to try beer making. Sounds interesting.

Making beer from grain, which I do, is a horrendous amont of work. An easier entry into that hobby is the use of malt extract. I reccomend you read the book "How to Brew" by John Palmer. It's an excellent primer.

It's also available free on line here: http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html.

Don't take my Italian bitter as an example...it's not a beer, it's an imitation soft drink.