Hog Fest Causing lots of Action in the Kitchen

With Hog Fest around the corner I'm in the kitchen creating new recipe Pork Tamales (can't show at this time, it is a competition after all). Since all the equipment is getting used I ground up a extra 25 pounds of pork shoulder for sausage.



This Italian meat Grinder is 2HP and 29 years old. It will grind 25 pounds of meat thru a fine plate in 90 seconds or so. If I'm slow to keep it fed of course it will take longer. Here I have the Chili plate in as the first thing I ground up was a full sized Pork Belly.



Here is a picture of the chopped Pork Belly. It is a beautiful meat to work with. The Tamales are getting the Belly, this is all you will see on them in this post. This is a Sausage making post after all.



Now the Mixer is in Play. The Bowl holds 25 pounds of ground meat, here is 11 pounds of Shoulder. In one of my recipes I like to add a little Mesquite Oil for a extra level of flavor. When you are making sausage many people think you have to add a lot of fat for moisture but for those who have not studied making sausage especially smoked sausage the actual addition is cold water. When your deer processor says your meat looses weight that is BS because they add almost 10% total meat weight in water. The mixed sausage meat won't even case well without the addition of cold water. Here I add 2 bottles of cold water to 11 pounds of meat mixture.



This is is how I add the seasonings. Once mixed and the exact weight measured out on a digital scale for repeatability I shake the bowl over the mixing bowl while the meat is mixing to prevent lumps of seasonings.



Now let me tell you about my Casing. First, it is so tender like a Hot Dog, you can't even tell the meat is in a casing once cooked. To get this Casing I was Forced to buy over 2 MILES of it before they would sell me. Well I have about a Mile left. You keep it in a refrigerator and it lasts forever. Once a Case of the Casings is opened I vacuum pack any Casing not used and return to the fridge till needed. Here 1/2 of one tube is loaded on the Stuffing Tube. This half will be more than I need for the entire hopper of meat, 12lbs worth. My Sausage Caser was a Christmas gift from my wonderful wife of 30+ years who is German, did she buy it for Me or Her, Jury is still out.



Once I start I have to be careful to the pressure I put the Casing under. The 3rd picture shows how it will start splitting on it's own, well after the initial casing was done. I had to snip these sections out to stop the splitting. You literally can't tell the casing is even there.



This is one of my favorite spots when switching sausage flavors. What you see is the sausage that is left once the stuffing is over, what I see is Breakfast!. I will post cooking this ball of sausage in the Cooking Crappie Section.



Now you see why I have this skinny Island in my Kitchen, it's for making and casing sausage. I C-Clamp the Stuffer on the end so I can turn the handle and feed the Casing at the same time.



The Italian I like to link long enough for a Poorboy if we are wanting one and my special Lil' Squirts are fat and stubby breakfast links. I hope you enjoy this post.