Vacation week sausage extravaganza

[MudFarm]

So I had a week of vacation to burn and what better way then to cut up a pig and mix in with my 112lbs of venison. Mostly used premix packages from Waltons and a local shop. Waltons Honey BBQ snack stick mix is fantastic. Made brats, hotdogs, summer sausage, snack sticks, and my grandfather's farmer's sausage. Even made a batch of lard in between the other projects. Burnt some snack sticks on the first round as I was not rotating regularly but other than that all turned out fantastic. I was extremely happy with the brats and farmers sausage. Having the digital #3 made things easy since I could program all the heat and time schedules.
Enjoy the pictures, I'll include the farmer's sausage recipe for anyone who wants to try it. My father cold smoked that for several days before I finished it in my smoker to make sure it hit temp.

 

[old sarge]

Nicely done Justin.

 

[barelfly]

Wow! Some serious sausage! Thanks for sharing with us! Looks great and like a fun time!

 

[Pork Belly]

my grandfather's farmer's sausage

I've used Walton's they are pretty good. Grandpa's recipe sounds like it has potential, since you are at least the third generation using it. .

 

[MudFarm]

I should have paid more attention to the recipe when I was a kid helping Grandpa because when he quit doing it we took the meat in to a processor for quite a few years. After a bad experience we decided to do our own again and grandpa was quite old but recalled most of it by memory. It took about 3 years to really get the recipe perfected. Dad and I have been making the farmer's sausage for about the last 10 years now. We have always stuffed it in hog casings (I would guess 45mm) from a local butcher shop. This year I decided to stuff a few in my leftover summer sausage fiber casings and everyone who has tried it gave rave reviews.
I broke down the old 60 pound recipe for a 25lb batch.
20lbs venison
5lbs pork trimmings or fatty pork
6 2/3oz kosher salt
1 oz curing salt
1 oz pepper
2.5 oz mustard seed (we generally add more since we like it)
1.25lbs of onions (ran through grinder with meat)
0.416 cups of sugar (came out to about 3oz)
0.416 oz of marjoram.

Cold smoked up to four days and then I brought home and finished to 145-150.
Next year if I'm short on meat I'll be ditching the summer sausage and doubling this at a minimum.

 

[Pork Belly]

Thanks for that, it looks worth a try. I used cloth casings this year.

We had zero issues with bursting,  they took the smoke well and pulled away clean when the meat was cool. Overall they sped up the process.

https://butchersupplycompany.com/cloth-bags/

 

[MudFarm]

Thanks for that, it looks worth a try. I used cloth casings this year.

We had zero issues with bursting,  they took the smoke well and pulled away clean when the meat was cool. Overall they sped up the process.

https://butchersupplycompany.com/cloth-bags/

Cloth bags for summer sausage? I have never seen those before. What is the advantage over fiber casings, smoke takes better? Do they hang or can you just lay on the racks instead?

BTW I read some of your posts in the bacon section, that is my next experiment since I saved that and one hind quarter (for ham later) from the pig I butchered.

 

[Pork Belly]

I'm not sure if there is an overwhelming advantage to the cloth, but we enjoyed them. They are very tough. No rips tears or blow outs. They hold a good volume. they were listed as ##lb bags but we easily were stuffing a quarter to half pound more.

Zero shrinkage, wrinkling or loose casing issues. They stay in contact with the meat but are easly pulled away.

I knew a guy in Arizona over Facebook. He was a big fan of them. He did fabulas cured, smoked and dry aged projects. The bags are ideal for that.