[caracroft]

Our first pig was butchered into joints and chops etc and then the butcher minced up a load of parts for me to make my own sausages.

My recipe book indicated which parts of the pig to mince for each recipe which i wasnt able to keep to, i just had to presume the butcher had minced in roughly the right amount of fat.

I had purchased, the week before, a mincer/sausage maker from Butchers Sundries and hog skins.  I had also dried out a few loaves of seedy bread which we like ready for the rusk element and dried a load of my sage plants leaves.  (didnt dry totally in time so couldnt crush it had to chop it roughly)

The instructions for setting up the machine for mincing and sausage stuffing were the same but it was coming out like pate, so we took off the blade but left the disc in place.

We have tried a few of the sausages and are so disappointed  - loads of you on here have exclaimed on the joy of your own sausages and we were so excited.  It was so stressful as well, it took a few days to make the 13kg of sausages i ended up with and i was stressing about food poisoning and getting it all in the freezer!! 

Where have I gone wrong?  the texture feels horrible in your mouth and the flavours arent great.  They shrink to a ridiculous size as well?  Is it the way Im cooking them? I read not to prick them, but never know when they are cooked so maybe Im overdoing them?   

My other two pigs are going soon and I dont want to make the same mistakes and advice from all you successful sausage makers would be great. 

Cara   

[HappyHippy]

Don't beat yourself up, it's your first attempt 

Get your meat really cold before mincing/stuffing, it'll improve the texture no end 
When I'm mincing my own meat (not that often as the butcher does it with his super high speed, efficient commercial mincer instead of my wee domestic one - it's really only good for little batches as it heats up and affects the texture  ) I mince it into a bowl set over ice and once mixed with the other bits, it goes into the fridge before I stuff it.
If your butcher is mincing everything for you, I'd suggest buying a stand alone stuffer - they do the job far quicker and with better results than the combined one.

Shrinkage is either down to too much fat in the mince mix (it should be around 70% meat and 30% fat) or not enough rusk/breadcrumbs. I usually use about 10-15% rusk - based on weight. So if you were doing a 1 kilo batch you'd need at least 100g of 'filler' and any liquid you add should be ice cold too.

As for the flavour, did you use plenty of salt & pepper ?
I'm not a lover of salt, but the sausages need it in quite high amounts to bring out the flavour. I find fresh herbs aren't as strongly flavoured as dried ones - but you do also need to let the sausages 'rest' and the flavours infuse (at least overnight I find) to get the finished taste.

You can buy pre-mixed seasoning mixes to add to  your pork, it might be worth getting hold of some and try a little batch to see how it compares. Once you've mixed up your intended sausage meat fry a little patty and taste it before stuffing it into the skins - that way you can easily adjust it if needed. Try bolder flavours too  Honey & mustard. sweet chilli, caramelised onion....all good 

Hope that helps a bit ?
Don't be put off from having another go, soooooo worth it 
Karen

[caracroft]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate all your encouragement and will go through all your tips bit by bit with the notes I made after my batches.

 

[caracroft]

Karen, can i ask a couple more questions.
I made my sausages and then froze them - then I vacuum sealed them the next day to help them keep longer.  Should I have rested them in the fridge overnight first?

Also I forgot, some recipes mentioned water - but I saw a sausage demonstration at a show which didnt use any liquid and i thought that was only added for extra weight, so in my infinite wisdom decided to leave that bit out.  Do you add water to your sausage recipes?

Thanks Cara

[Greenerlife]

I add red wine to mine!   

[Foobar]

Once you have mixed your mix, before you start stuffing, fry off a little bit and taste it, that way if it's not right you can correct it before you stuff your skins.


I mince my own (by hand mincer) so that I can control the fat content, and also remove any gristle bits.  I bought a second disk for my mincer that has much larger holes in it, this gives a much rougher mince of the meat.  This means that on the first pass the meat is very roughly minced, but on the second pass (the stuffing pass) the mixture is re-minced and the end consistency is perfect, just like it would be if you had only minced once with the standard size plate.

[caracroft]

Thanks for the advice foobar!

And the red wine probably wouldnt make it as far as the sausage mix 

[Bionic]

Last year I had most of the sausages made by the butcher but also had 10k of mince so that I could do some of my own. I used bought seasonsings, apple and chilli and also bought the rusk. I weighed and added as per the instructions.
I have one of those old fashioned cast iron mincer/stuffers. The first lot was put through with a mincing plate in place but mine also ended up like pate. After that I took the mincing plate out and just used the machine to do the stuffing, after all the butcher had already minced for me.
Apart from the dodgy shapes at first and the difference in taste because of the seasonings there wasn't a noticeable difference between those the butcher did and mine and none of them shrank much.
I liked them all 
Tasting the sausage meat before stuffing sounds like a good idea though.

[Fleecewife]

Oh what a shame they haven't worked so well this time around.  Still, you can use them up in recipes such as curries, where you chop them into short lengths and cook with a well flavoured curry or chilli sauce, or rich gravy with loads of herbs. Sausage stew in fact, where they will absorb plenty of liquid from the sauce.   I make mutton sausages which are always rather hard and dry - very different to shop sausages so I don't expect them to taste the same.
 
I think maybe for your next lot it would be worth using the commercial rusk.   I make my own crumbs using spelt bread, but when I tried using wholemeal crumbs the result was awful (hence the trick with the curry sauce) - all I could taste was the bread (and mutton normally has quite a strong flavour) and I had used only 10% breadcrumbs.   I should have added more water than I did as they were dry like pepperoni  .   I have made wonderful sausages since then - so just keep trying.
So follow a recipe exactly and add loads of coarsely ground black pepper and chopped chillies - far more than you think.
 
 
Weschenfelders say that you can freeze the sausagemeat before making your sausages, then freeze the sausages, because the meat has been 'worked'.  I'm not sure I get their reasoning, but we haven't got food poisoning from them yet.  That way I make just 5kg at a time which is how much my stuffer holds, and I can try all sorts of different flavours.  I also make loads of 'burgers' which I serve with gravy or hot sauces. 
 
I agree with all who've said to try cooking and tasting a bit before you start stuffing.
 
Cross posted with Bionic

[hughesy]

Your best bet as a beginner would be to obtain a seasoning ready made from one of the usual suppliers and stick rigidly to the recipe they provide with it. Other vital points are keeping everything as cold as poss at all stages, doing the mixing properly and using the correct amount of water and rusk. Get the water or the rusk element wrong and your texture will be pants. Likewise if you don't mix thoroughly enough. Disasters are part of the learning process but you need to know where you went wrong or you won't be able to fix it next time. I would definitely say get a proven recipe because mixing stuff in ad hoc probably won't work and you won't know where you went wrong.

[caracroft]

Thank you all.  I am starting to feel a little better about the whole thing.   

Bionic - I will try it without the mincing plate (although I used the one with the largest holes) - I thought it had to stay there to keep the stuffer in place but Im thinking now that this is probably wrong and that it was causing a texture problem

Fleecewife - Thanks for the curry suggestion - was thinking they would all have to be sausage casseroles but youve given me more ideas.  I did wonder about my breadcrumbs so may look at the rusk option

Hughesy - I think you might be right about trying the seasoning mixes - I just so wanted to do it all myself with my own ingredients  but i cant spoil anymore meat !!

So to summarise - I need to keep the meat much more chilled, use rusk rather than breadcrumbs, dont ignore the water in recipes and maybe try a seasoning mix and then I might have some sausages to be proud of!!
 

[wayfarer]

I only make wheat free sausages but I believe that if you are using homemade breadcrumbs you need to bake them to kill off the yeast or it will cause problems later - that or buy commercial rusk.  I made a really good batch of sausages by replacing the rusk with oats in similar quantity but you definitely need to add water to it.  I also use a course mincer plate and pass through the mincer twice - once to chop the meat and the second time after adding the seasonings and rusk to thoroughly mix it together.  Hope your next lot are better.

[Tamsaddle]

It has taken me years and years, and hundreds of attempts, to get my four variety of sausages exactly the way I want them, both for flavour and texture.   We use a heavy duty mincer and mince very coarsely just once, the way we like it.   This goes straight in the fridge for cooling while all the ingredients are prepared, onions, apples, herbs, spices, whatever - all of it fresh.   It is useful to have a precise set of measurements/weights which you record meticulously each time so that you can duplicate it, or alter it a bit, the next time around.    I have found all the pre-mixes very disappointing and tasteless.    The only artificial additives are 2 products from Weschenfelders, one their yeastless rusk, and the other a salt and pepper replacement called Gold Pork Seasoning which is absolutely delicious, but must be used in far tinier quantities than they recommend.     I use a max. of 8% rusk, very often none at all, all home made bread crumbs have been hopeless, and for very dry ingredient mixes, add a few spoons of iced water just to get the consistency better for stuffing  (this is something you just learn over time).    In the evening I mix the non-pork ingredients with the mince, then re-chill this overnight before doing my final taste tests in the morning, with little patties of the mix fried up, before starting stuffing.    If anything needs a last minute adddition and re-mix - straight back into the fridge for at least an hour before starting to stuff.    In other words, keep re-cooling, over and over again, whenever you can.
We have one of those large plastic stuffers which attach to the work surface and the mix gets pushed in with a big manual handle - takes about 3 kg of mix, and far more efficient than the combined mincers/stuffers.  In the early days I use to prick the sausages whenever there were air bubbles, but this resulted in them all exploding and falling to pieces when they got cooked.   I now just leave any air bubbles and eventually they disappear.   I also find it really helpful to hang them up in open, cold, moving air for a few hours (a fan if necessary) to help dry them out before packaging.    Makes a huge difference to the final taste and appearance in their packs.    We freeze them within 48 hours, and they are absolutely delicious even months and months later.
It is definitely an art worth perfecting - the results are sublime, and exquisitely delicious.   Good luck!

[Greenerlife]

I either do 100% meat sausages, or I use 5% breadcrumbs in mine but I always let the mix expand before using the stuffer if it has breadcrumbs with it.  I don't really understand the use of rusk - perhaps because I don't know what it is!     

[suziequeue]

Alot has been said already but or what it's worth we get our butcher to coarse mince our pork for the same reasons as HappyHippy has already stated.

Then we just mix and stuff without re-mincing. I love the result. I get flavour-bases from Westchenfelder still but am planning to branch out soon.

I have grown a whole load of sage this year and it's drying beautifully in the airing cupboard.

Keep trying.

You will have learnt SO MUCH from your first attempt that it would be  waste if you gave up now.

There is no crime in making sausages that don't live up to your expectations but there is if you learn nothing from the experience.

We learn most from our (relative) "failures". You have taken the first step in posting up here and there has been alot of really sound words which you are clearly taking on board.

You're not puking and nothing's broken...... so get up there again