Newbie - First Sausage
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 19:13
Seeing as we made our first breakfast sausage just last night I believe that we qualify as "newbies". We used a traditional recipe and couldn't wait to try it so we had some last night - nice with a wee bit of after-bite and heat in our mouth - we thought about reducing the amount of pepper in it at that point, but we did follow the instructions and put it in the refrigerator overnight so as to let the spices infuse into the meat. This morning we had it with our breakfast - perfect!!! My 19 month old grandson couldn't get enough of it 
As this is our first attempt we didn't go overboard with grinding meat. I bought a 20# pork shoulder from which we got 17#13.5oz. of ground pork. I packaged it in 5# & 2-1/2# packages from which we made 2 different 5# batches. We tried to err on the side of caution and are making patties only to test the recipes. Our 2nd sausage was a maple sausage - delicious.
I have bought a 7 liter sausage stuffer, but I'm holding back on using it until we test and approve our recipes. So far, so good!
We used the meat grinder attachment on our KitchenAid Pro mixer - it works nicely, but it is slow when grinding more than 5# of meat. I've got to upgrade to a larger grinder. Any thoughts, ideas and recommendations?
The 2nd appliance that I need is a spice/herb grinder. I've read the reviews on many grinders, and my head is spinning - most all of the less-than-$50 spice grinders have serious shortcomings as far as I have read. It's not that I'm going to be grinding more than a few TBS. at a time, but I want it to be without a mess and have an easy-to-clean grinding chamber. Does anyone have or know of a grinder that fits my wants & needs??? Thanks.
We also have an MES smoker which we love! Down the road I hope to make some kielbasa just like my Babcia used to buy at the Polish butcher's shop in Toronto. I'm open to a good recipe.
As this is our first attempt we didn't go overboard with grinding meat. I bought a 20# pork shoulder from which we got 17#13.5oz. of ground pork. I packaged it in 5# & 2-1/2# packages from which we made 2 different 5# batches. We tried to err on the side of caution and are making patties only to test the recipes. Our 2nd sausage was a maple sausage - delicious.
I have bought a 7 liter sausage stuffer, but I'm holding back on using it until we test and approve our recipes. So far, so good!
We used the meat grinder attachment on our KitchenAid Pro mixer - it works nicely, but it is slow when grinding more than 5# of meat. I've got to upgrade to a larger grinder. Any thoughts, ideas and recommendations?
The 2nd appliance that I need is a spice/herb grinder. I've read the reviews on many grinders, and my head is spinning - most all of the less-than-$50 spice grinders have serious shortcomings as far as I have read. It's not that I'm going to be grinding more than a few TBS. at a time, but I want it to be without a mess and have an easy-to-clean grinding chamber. Does anyone have or know of a grinder that fits my wants & needs??? Thanks.
We also have an MES smoker which we love! Down the road I hope to make some kielbasa just like my Babcia used to buy at the Polish butcher's shop in Toronto. I'm open to a good recipe.