How To Make Homemade Sausage From Scratch

Homemade sausage is wonderful and a great way to use meat trimmings from butchering a pig.  In this post I’ll show you step by step how to make homemade sausage from scratch.

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How To Make Homemade Sausage

Sausages are a wonderful way to use up the odds and sods or odds and ends from butchering at home.  Sausages are an easy weekday meal after a busy day at work like the traditional English breakfast, a sausage sandwich or good old fashioned bangers and mash!

The great thing about homemade sausage is that you can add the herbs and spices exactly to your tastes.  I’m partial to a good old Lincolnshire sausage but it isn’t something I can get here in the stores in the US so, I like to make my own.

Making your own sausages allows you to control exactly what is going into them including the meat and the seasonings.  You can get really creative with beer or cider in your sausages, leeks, Stilton cheese, apples the list is endless really to how you make your sausages.

Equipment To Make Sausages

As you might have guessed, you need some equipment to make sausages.  You need a meat grinder and sausage stuffer to make sausages at home.  Your meat grinder minces and grinds the meat and fat whilst the sausage stuffer forces the ground meat through a tube and into the sausage casing.

I used to make sausages with my KitchenAid meat grinder attachment which came with the plastic sausage stuffer attachments but was only really good for small quantities, like for 1 meal.  The motor in the KitchenAid would be overworking and would get very hot and I don’t recommend using this equipment for making sausages.

When we acquired a local pig from a homesteader we knew we needed to get something a bit more industrial to cope with all the grinding and sausage making we had planned to get the most out of the pig so the KitchenAid is relegated to bread and cake baking activities which it champions at!

What You Need In A Meat Grinder

When looking for a meat grinder it is important to know that you need to keep everything as cold as possible when making sausages.  The meat grinds much better when very cold or a little frozen and gives your sausages a better texture. The parts moving and grinding the meat and fat get hot with friction so it is always worth investing to get a grinder with stainless steel parts which can go in the freezer to get them really cold.  Most meat grinders come with different sized grinding plates so you can grind the meat to the right texture: coarse, medium or fine.

I bit the bullet and invested in an electric meat grinder.  The investment has paid for itself with the ground pork and sausages we have in the freezer.  My husband busts it out when we find beef on sale at the store to turn into our own ground beef too and we have used it to make ground lamb and if we were going hunting and were successful, it would get used then too.

A good meat grinder will get the job done quickly, have metal parts and metal gears.  I bought the LEM Products 1158 Mighty Bite Electric Meat Grinder because it wasn’t overly expensive, would fit on the kitchen counter and isn’t huge and heavy (got to think about where these things get stored when not in use!) and it had the metal parts and gears we were looking for.

Once thing you should be prepared for is that making sausages or grinding meat can get noisy, higher horse power grinders like LEM Products 17791 Big Bite 8  which is the model up from mine are definitely quieter but are more expensive; and worth the investment if you are really into butchering, sausage making or are a keen family of hunters.  I have to say that my meat grinder is noisy but it works quickly so it is bearable.  You can see the video below and hear how noisy it is.  It is also really easy to disassemble, clean and sanitize.

Stuffing the Sausage

We still use plastic sausage stuffers and they work just fine. but you can use metal sausage stuffers if you have a lot of sausages to make as you can freeze them and keep them much more hygienic and sanitized.  Check out the video to see how to stuff a sausage casing and how to tie sausages:

Related Post: How to Make Black Pudding

How To Make Sausages From Scratch

The right ingredients play a big part in making sausages from scratch and you will need:

• Pork
  You can use other meat like beef, chicken, venison etc.  If you  are using pork, you can use a mixture of trimmings off the bone during butchering, shoulder cuts or belly and back cuts.  The meat to fat ratio is about 70% meat to 50% fat.  The meat wants to be in about 1 inch cubes to make it easier to push through the meat grinder.
• Fat
  You need some good quality fat for good sausages.  Pork back fat is the best for sausages. Cut the fat into about 1 inch cubes to go through the meat grinder.
• Rusk
  Rusk is a yeastless bread like hardtack which helps bind the sausage together.   It is broken up and has a rough breadcrumb texture. Hardcore homesteaders make their own but you can buy it too although it takes some hunting down here in the US, it is easy to find in the UK.  If making your own hardtack isn’t your jive, you can use unsalted crackers. :)Rusk needs to be dry.  If you make hardtack slide it and bake it in a low oven to really dry it out then pop it into a bag and bust it up with a rolling pin to get the breadcrumb texture.
• Sausage casings
  There’s pretty much a sausage casing for every type of sausage!  Take a look at the different sausage casing which is available and choose one to match what you are making.  I like to use the traditional hog or sheep casing packed in salt because they are natural and are the texture and style which I am accustomed to with the great British bangers and mash.
• Salt
  You need salt in your sausages, it is a preservative and a flavoring.  Some recipes will add Prague Powder which is a pink curing salt which has potassium nitrate (saltpeter) and sodium chloride (table salt) in it but it isn’t necessary.
• Spices
  The most coveted of sausage making secrets.  Just like a barbecue recipe or hot sauce recipe, the spices and quantities in a sausage are a chef’s secret.  Our basic sausage seasoning is 20 g/0.7 oz table salt, 20 g/0.7 oz white pepper, 20 g/0.7 oz mace.

Basic Sausage Recipe

This is a typical English sausage recipe.  A good basic sausage recipe will help you build your sausage making skills and confidence.  To make your own sausages you will need:

• 3.5 lbs of pork 70% lean 30% fat cut into 1 inch cubes
• 0.5 lb rusk
• 2oz of sausage seasoning
• 1lb of ice cold water
• 1 package of hog casing

Freeze your meat and fat.  If you can disassemble the parts of your meat grinder like the plates and the auger, pop those in the freezer too.

Weigh out 1 lb of ice cold water into a large bowl and add 1/2 lb of rusk.  Mix together then leave for about an hour in the fridge.

Thoroughly rinse the sausage casing though the tube and on the outside.  Let them soak in water according to the package instructions.

Run the meat through your meat grinder using the coarse plate then mix in the sausage seasoning.

Thoroughly mix the hydrated risk with the ground meat and chill again.

Run the meat thorough the grinder again, you can use the medium grinding plate if you like or keep the coarse plate.  The second grinding isn’t necessary but many sausage makers say it improves the texture of the sausage.

Chill the meat again and attach the sausage stuffer to the grinder.  Slide the casing onto the stuffer.  You can see how we stuff hog casing in this video:

Add the meat to the hopper and start stuffing the casing.

Pinch the casing to create spaces at the sausage length you want.  Tie your sausages and pop them in the fridge or freezer.

Tips To Make Great Sausages From Scratch

The right combination of ingredients is just the start of making sausages, below are some quick tips to help you make the best homemade sausages from scratch:

1. Prepare everything beforehand
   Get prepared the night before by freezing bowls, parts of your meat grinder such as grinding plates, meat hopper and auger, freeze the meat and fat so everything is cold.  Check the instructions for your sausage casing, hog or sheep casing packed in salt need rinsing and soaking for a while in water. 
2. Have your spice mix ready
   Have plenty of spices on hand ready to go.  You can purchase a ready made sausage spice mix or you can make one up yourself.  I like to start with half the recipe required amounts first and mix it into the ground meat mixture well.  Take a little of the meat and fry it up to check the seasoning is ok before moving on. I’ve found some recipes are too salty and others are not salty enough so go with less to start with as you can always add more!
3. Keep it cold
   Once you have ground your meat, get it into the freezer or fridge again to help keep it cold.  If the meat gets warm, everything becomes a sloppy mess and you get a mushy texture in your sausage and no-one wants a mushy sausage.
4. Don’t skimp on fat
   It is the fat in the sausage which keeps the meat juicy and helps the flavor.  Don’t be stingy with the fat you need about 70% meat to 30% fat for decent sausages.
5. Invest in a good grinder
   If you are serious about making sausages, it is worth investing in a good meat grinder which had metal gears and parts you can put in the freezer to keep everything cold.

What’s your favorite sausage recipe or sausage making tips?  Let me know in the comments!

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