Sausage making course

I was given a sausage making course for my birthday earlier on this year and last Friday we went down to Ngaruawahia for it.

We kicked off with 4 buckets of pork shoulder. Shoulder is best for sausages as it has the best ratio of fat to lean meat.

The pork was run through the mincer...

and then salt & flavours were added. We were making English Breakfast (Pork, bacon, salt & pepper); Pork and apple (pork, dehydrated apple, white wine, salt & pepper); Nottingham (Pork, venison, red wine, spices, salt & pepper) and Tuscan (Pork, red wine, garlic, sundried tomatoes, herbs and spices, salt & pepper).

Adding the salt - to minced pork and dehydrated apple

Everything gets mixed before going back into the mincer

The mixed mince and ingredients go back through the mincer at this point for blending - using a coarser plate so that it retains some texture.

After that it is loaded into the "Gillespie" Filler and filled into casings

Before being linked...

and then hung to dry - there are just over 900 sausages here from our few hours work.

A fun day out and a great birthday gift - thanks!