Making Sausage at Home
Beer and sausage have ancient origins. We don’t know when these two classic products of human ingenuity were first served together, but it likely occurred more than a thousand years ago. They are just as satisfying together today, and making them fits well together for the home hobbyist, too.
At its most basic, the nature of sausage is reflected in the origin of the name. “Sausage” in English is derived through Anglo-French from Latin “salsus,” meaning salted. Minced or ground meat, salted and seasoned, usually stuffed into a casing. Many of the sausages we enjoy in North America originated in Germany and other European countries, as well as Asia and the Middle East. In this article, I will share with you my recipe for smoked beer brats, a version that resembles some of the bratwurst variations found in Germany. And to complement the Italian Pilsner story featured in this issue, I also share my favorite mild Italian sausage recipe.
Bratwursts are very popular throughout the U.S. and Canada. Most often made entirely from pork, some are made in various German traditions that include beef along with the pork. Modern versions may incorporate such ingredients as cheddar cheese or jalapeños. Usually made in a natural hog casing, some are smoked over hardwood or fruitwood while others are grilled, fried, or boiled in beer directly from raw. My particular recipe is 60% pork and 40% beef, stuffed into natural hog casings, and smoked over applewood. Since I like to make it as a beer brat, I always include some homebrew in the mix. My spicing is traditional, relying on nutmeg and black pepper for distinctive character. The meat mixture is also bound together with the addition of beaten egg.
Italian sausage is a North American term for a product that resembles some of the popular styles in Italy, where dozens of different regional and traditional sausages are enjoyed. Fried or grilled in the casing, such sausages are served on sandwiches with peppers and onions, on top of spaghetti with marinara sauce, or simply on a plate alongside a crisp Pilsner-style beer. Removed from the casing (or never stuffed to begin with), it can be found in pasta sauces, on pizzas, and as filling for stuffed pastas like ravioli. My version, like many others, is a 100% pork recipe. Fennel seeds, garlic, and fresh parsley make it instantly identifiable as “Italian.” Since I like to keep all the fermentation hobbies going, I include some homemade red wine in the meat mixture. If you want to make hot Italian sausage instead of mild, simply add cayenne pepper at a rate of ¼ to ½ tsp. per pound (454 g) of meat.
Sausage Making Basics
Two basic pieces of equipment are required for sausage making: A grinder and a stuffer. Just as with homebrewing equipment, there are some simple manual devices that will get you started, but you may want to upgrade if this becomes a regular hobby. In the pictures included here, you will see the electric grinder and piston-style stuffer that I have settled on. They have proved very satisfactory for my level of production of several batches per year of 5–6 pounds (2.3–2.7 kg) each. Of course, that’s a lot of one kind of sausage for my wife and I. Sometimes we split a batch, as we did for this article between brats and Italian sausage. What we don’t cook and eat in a day or two, we freeze on sheet pans and then store in zipper bags in the freezer.
In the bratwurst recipe, you will see that I use pink salt/Prague powder #1/insta cure #1 as an ingredient. That curing salt is 6.25% sodium nitrite and the balance is sodium chloride (table salt). The other prominent curing salt you may run across in this hobby is Prague powder #2 with the same amount of sodium nitrite plus 4% sodium nitrate. Both salts are dyed pink so they don’t get mistaken for table salt in the kitchen. Besides assuring the color and flavor of cured meat, these salts protect against the growth of spoilage organisms, most notably Clostridium botulinum, in sausages that spend some time at other than cold temperatures. Cure #1 is for short-term applications, such as the 90-minute “cool” smoking period in my recipe. If you just want to make the same recipe as a raw brat to be refrigerated or frozen, you may leave it out. For longer storage outside the fridge, as in drying a salami, the nitrate in cure #2 breaks down to nitrite, providing extended protection.
If you want to get the character of cured sausage but avoid nitrate and nitrite salts, you can buy celery extract powder that has significant levels of naturally occurring nitrates. Some salamis also have a sour lactic tang as part of the flavor profile. Just as with many sour beers, the lactic acid is produced through bacterial fermentation. Because I love putting microbes to work, I have made a few dried sausages using Chr Hansen Bactiferm F-RM-52 that contains Lactobacillus sakei and Staphylococcus carnosus.
What meat you use in what sausage is entirely your choice. Modern pork is so lean that adding pork fatback (also called back fat), as I do here, really helps assure a juicy and succulent product. You will probably need to talk to your butcher to buy it, but it is very inexpensive (I order my sausage meats from a local custom meat purveyor and just pick up the combination I want the next day.) In the interest of expanding my sausage horizons, I have also made sausages from meats beyond pork and beef. I have boned and ground chicken thighs and turkey thighs, and around Thanksgiving (when turkeys go on sale at supermarkets) my wife has bought whole frozen turkeys that we thaw, bone and skin, and then grind for sausage. I have also used lamb leg meat for making the North African sausage Merguez and it was delicious. For that one, I wanted to make breakfast-size sausages, smaller than a “standard” dinner sausage.
That leads me to a discussion of casing: The small ones are sheep intestine casings and do, indeed, make breakfast-size links. Hog casings are what I use most often, making sausages roughly one inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. The biggest natural casings for home use are beef middles, used for sausages like bologna or summer sausage. There are also a variety of manufactured casings using collagen, plastic, and other materials. You may be able to find the casings you need at your local butcher shop. If not, a simple Google search for sausage casings will result in numerous options to order online.
As with any food or beverage hobby, cleaning and sanitation are very important. Clean all of your work surfaces like you would for any cooking project, and sanitize any surface that will be in direct contact with your sausages. I like to use a 70% ethanol solution in a spray bottle to sanitize the Formica tabletop that I do my stuffing on. Another protection against spoilage is to keep everything as cold as possible while you work. That also helps keep the fat from smearing, so you get a better texture.
This story is, of course, intended as an introduction to making sausage at home. If you’d like to take the hobby further I would recommend getting a good book on the subject. I use (and like) Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn as a basic text and, for more advanced fermented sausages: The Art of Making Fermented Sausages by Marianski and Marianski.
Alright, armed with this basic information, let’s open a homebrew and get to the recipes.
Bob’s Smoked Beer Brats
Ingredients
Meat:
3 lbs. (1.35 kg) boneless pork butt (shoulder)
2 lbs. (0.9 kg) boneless beef chuck
1 lb. (0.45 kg) pork fatback
First addition:
1½ tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. sage
6 g pink salt (Prague powder #1) (May omit if not cool-smoking)
1 Tbsp. crushed garlic
Second addition:
40 g kosher salt
2 eggs
1 cup beer (I used homebrewed Baltic porter)
Other:
Hog casings packed in salt
Applewood chips
Step by Step
Clean and sanitize surfaces. Cube fat and put in freezer. Cube pork and beef. Toss with spices and chill.
Chill grinder parts. Soak about 4 hog casings 30–60 minutes in tepid water. Rinse with cool water, including running a plug of water through each. Keep in a fresh bowl of cool water.
Toss fat with meat. Grind on medium into a bowl set in ice. Beat together eggs, beer, and salt and mix into ground meat. Fry a test patty and taste. Adjust seasoning to fit your taste if needed.
Start filling a casing, squeeze out air, and tie off with kitchen twine. Stuff to desired link sizes, twisting opposite directions each time. Coil on a rack and tie off end. Air-dry on racks in the refrigerator about 1 hour. Preheat smoker to 140 °F (60 °C) for 30 minutes. Hang sausages on smoker racks and smoke for 90 minutes over applewood chips at 140 °F (60 °C).
Cut apart links and grill or fry over low-medium heat for 10–12 minutes to cook through (smoking at 140 °F/60 °C does not fully cook the pork).
Notes:
The added pork fat makes for a very juicy, succulent sausage. The medium grind produces a rustic bratwurst. For a smoother texture, you can grind as described but using the coarse die, then chill again, and grind a second time on fine.
Meaty and smoky aromas and flavors are most prominent. The use of Baltic porter homebrew and the nutmeg seasoning introduce secondary aromas and flavors suggestive of sweet baking spices. Both beef and pork are present in the flavor profile.
For pairing, a malty beer like this Baltic porter works nicely in parallel with the sweet applewood smoke and nutmeg spicing. A contrasting combination also works well, with a crisp Pilsner or hoppy pale ale cleansing the palate between bites of sausage.
Mild Italian Sausage
Ingredients
Meat:
4 lbs. (1.8 kg) boneless pork butt (shoulder)
1 lb. (0.45 kg) pork fatback
First addition:
1½ tsp. black pepper
4 tsp. toasted fennel seeds (toss in a nonstick pan over medium heat to toast)
1 tsp. paprika
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 head of garlic, peeled and chopped
(Optional: 1–2 tsp. cayenne powder to make hot Italian sausage)
Second addition:
8 tsp. kosher salt
7 tsp. sugar
Third addition:
¾ cup red wine
¼ cup red wine vinegar
Other:
Hog casings packed in salt
Step by Step
Clean and sanitize surfaces. Cube fat and put in freezer. Cube pork. Toss pork cubes and frozen fat cubes with spices. Add the salt and sugar and mix again. Chill.
Mix vinegar with wine and chill. Chill grinder parts.
Soak about four hog casings 30–60 minutes in tepid water. Rinse with cool water, including running a plug of water through each. Keep in a fresh bowl of cool water. (If you just want bulk Italian sausage without the casings, you can skip this part.)
Set up the grinder and get out the chilled sausage mixture. Grind on medium into a bowl set in ice. Add wine and vinegar and mix into ground meat. Fry a test patty and taste. Adjust seasoning as needed to fit your taste.
Start filling a casing, squeeze out air, and tie off with kitchen twine. Stuff to desired link sizes, twisting opposite directions each time. Coil on sheet pans lined with wax paper. Refrigerate or freeze, then cut apart the links. Use within a couple of days or store frozen sausages in zipper bags. Grill or fry thawed sausages until just cooked through to maintain juiciness.
Notes:
This sausage recipe uses a medium grind, producing the typical somewhat rustic character of most Italian sausage.
Aromas and flavors are savory meat and toasted fennel seed. The sausage is juicy but tender and has a very typically Italian flavor profile. The hints
of vinegar and wine brighten the overall palate.
This Italian sausage pairs very nicely with a dry, crisp Pilsner beer or with a fruity red wine.
