Homemade Sausage Making

I was trimming some pork butt meat for supper and found at least two glands and what appeared to be some lymph nodes. I excised them and threw them to the fox that visits every night.
Does everyone remove the glands from the meat before they grind it for sausage?

I cut them out too. They just look gross. You could probably grind it and never tell the difference but why would you.

I myself trim off all glands as well as lymph nodes I also slice nodes in half and check before tossing

What's the point of cutting the nodes in half? What are you looking for?

Checking the colour should be clear and pinkish which means everything is ok. Lymph nodes are part of the immune system - the body has 500+- of them which is part of the front line of defence of the immune system as an inspector it was common to check certain ones but these days with the speed and not being allowed to step out of the box hence lymph nodes are not checked as I did if at all

Anthrax can infect humans in three ways, the most common through the skin, (cutaneous anthrax) which causes an ugly sore that usually goes away without treatment. It starts as a red-brown raised spot that enlarges with extensive redness around it. The sore will blister and harden, and then as it develops, the center of the spot shows an ulcerated, blood crater that drains before forming a black crust called an "eschar". Yuk! Oh yes, at this point, the lymph nodes swell up.

In cattle, the most deadly form is "inhalation anthrax". If anthrax spores are inhaled, they migrate to lymph glands in the steer`s chest where they proliferate, spread, and produce toxins that most often cause death. Suspect lymph glands may be checked by a blood sample beneath a microscope by a trained lab tech or a doctor. The disease is highly infectious to humans but the USDA has a lid on it. There are strict laws in place regarding the spread of the disease and in my opinion, the MID and FSIS have done a colossal job in protecting consumers. By the time your beef chuck roast arrives at the marketplace, it has been inspected by some top-notch characters, so quit worrying!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

A Butcher in Ridge Spring, SC, taught me a while back how to find them and where to look for them.
If they are there, or if I find something that appears to look like them, I remove them as well.
Any cut-off pieces like that, btw also including bones etc, I freeze in a bag and on the morning when the garbage truck makes it's tour through our neighborhood, I dump the bag in the trash.

The bones and other unusuables get hauled out to one of the many natural gas & oil pipelines in the area. The bones get tied to trees so the coyotes and foxes can't abscond with them while waiting for me to show up with my .204!!! The pelts help cover costs.

What about roasting the bones for a tasty stock or smoking the bones to add to a pot o' beans?

Pork bones I brine and smoke for soup stock. Beef bones get roasted with carrots, onions and celery until brown and cooked for stock. Poultry bones get cooked for stock with carrots, onions and celery. The poultry meat that remained on the bones gets canned w/the stock for soup later. The veggies are depleted and tossed onto the compost pile.

That's utilization!

ssorllih wrote:Pork bones I brine and smoke for soup stock. Beef bones get roasted with carrots, onions and celery until brown and cooked for stock. Poultry bones get cooked for stock with carrots, onions and celery. The poultry meat that remained on the bones gets canned w/the stock for soup later. The veggies are depleted and tossed onto the compost pile.

JerBear wrote:That's utilization!

JerBear, I have learnt a lot from Ross on this forum (and many other members as well), very little goes to waste with him.

I have bought the bottles to preserve stock, read up on how to do it, but have never had a chance to try it so far, it's on my loooong "to do list".

Canning stock is quick and easy. You must use a pressure canner and cleaniness is, as always, a must. But 15 to 20 minutes per pint is the processing time. When you start adding meat and veggies the processing times change to much longer. this site is the gold standard for food preservation. http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/index.html

There is not much meat involved here so I mix salt, sugar and cure as for dry curing bacon but only spoonful quantities and sprinkle it on the meat an drub it in. Next day I rince it off and put it in the smoke to dry and smoke.
Not too concerned about the amount of nitrite involved but I do keep it in the limits for dry cured bacon. And the meaty bones are cooked in a couple of gallons of water and I always have to add salt for taste.

I am once again impressed Ross, how you use all the left overs.

Next year I will start canning, and know it's going to be interesting as well.