Last year for Christmas, my loving hubby gave me several attachments for my Kitchen-Aid mixer. Specifically the grinder and sausage stuffer. I have been wanting to use it but just haven’t had the extra hands to help with such a momentous project (oh the joy of shift work). Black Friday was the perfect opportunity. My parents and I cut and ground 20 lbs of meat then spiced, mixed, and stuffed it into natural hog casings. It took a full 8 hours start to finish and was great fun, though next time I think I will grind the meat and stuff the sausages on separate days. (On a side note, I used my mixer nearly the whole time. It didn’t overheat or have any troubles at all. I was pretty impressed!)
Below are the recipes we used and how the look prior to being stuffed. The Hot Italian smelled the best.
Hot Italian Sausage
5 lbs pork
1 cup cold red wine
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
5 tsp salt
1 tbsp garlic powder or-4 to 5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
3 tsp cayenne
5 tbsp fennel seed
2 tsp crushed chili peppers
5 tbsp paprika
Combine all, mix well & stuff into hog casing.
Bratwurst
5 lbs ground pork, fine grind
4 tsp sugar
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground sage
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp dry mustard
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp nutmeg
4 tsp salt
Combine all ingredients, mix well & stuff into hog casing.
Sweet Italian Sausage
10 lbs ground pork
4 tbsp salt
1 cups ice water (the original recipe called for 2)
1 tbsp cracked fennel seed
2 tsp coarse black pepper
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tbsp coriander
3 tsp crushed hot peppers
Combine all ingredients, mix well & stuff into hog casing.
The picture below is me rinsing the casings and looking for holes. About 7 had small holes and I set them aside, though we did use nearly all of them. We just cut the pieces smaller to avoid them and continued on with the idea that smaller sausages could be bun length.
After the casings were selected, you grease the stuffer attachment with crisco and gently (but with purpose) thread the casing on. Then run your meat mixture through the attachment and into the casing. At first we were rather slow but with practice we were able to speed up fairly significantly.
As you can see, the sausage was a great success! Can’t wait to taste it!
AnnaShortcakes 
Love the idea of adding red wine to the first mixture. All the rest looks great too!
I think the hot Italian will be the best of the three. Haven’t tasted them yet but can’t wait to try them!
Bravo! We haven’t made sausage in years. Need to remedy that.
What kind have you made in the past? I can’t wait to try them!
The one I remember most was a really great duck sausage. My dad used to hunt a lot and was always giving us stuff I didn’t really know what to do with, and that worked out great. I can’t recall what recipe we used, but Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie book is the one we usually go to for such things.
These recipes look great! I run a pizza place and just spent three weeks coming up with an Italian sausage recipe–I feel your pain with the 8-hour day! Glad to hear the mixer made it through–I’ve been skeptical about the motor on my home mixer being able to grind meat and stuff casings without overheating.
I bet your mixer will be just fine. I kept checking mine every little bit to be sure it wasn’t burning out. Be patient with yourself during the process. It takes a while to learn. I suggest you have help. It is definately not a one man job.
I always do all that work and then end up cutting some out of the casing. Once you start making your own you won’t stop. The store stuff is so salty. Your sausage looks great!
I love making sausage! Try fresh chorizo, it’s phenomenal.
Would you send me the link to your recipe?