Sausage Series 2024
Welcome to my Sausage journey of 2024, where I’ll be diving into the art of sausage making—one delicious link at a time!
Each month, I have explored a unique sausage recipe, sharing tips, tricks, and techniques to inspire you to roll up your sleeves and create your own at home.
I’m thrilled to partner with Weschenfelder Direct, a trusted name in sausage-making supplies, to bring you a comprehensive look at this age-old craft. Together, we’ll tackle everything from simple, classic sausages to intricate, complex varieties that will challenge even the most seasoned home cooks.
Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned pro, I hope this series not only entertains but also equips you with the knowledge and confidence to experiment with your own sausage creations.
Join me as we embark on this flavorful adventure, and let’s make 2024 a year to remember in the world of sausage!
If you want to embark on your own Sausage Journey - why not use discount code SPICEPUNCH10 for 10% off at Weschenfelder Direct.
January - Pheasant Sausage
I got the opportunity to join a friend at beating in January 2024 at a beautiful country estate in Cambridgeshire.
I wasn't sure what to expect but Brandon from @theacornhouseco showed me the ropes and gave me an idea of what the day would entail.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day walking through the woods, fields, mud and generally taking in the countryside.
The flags help to push the birds into a specific area which you can do by snapping them in the open or tapping the handles against some trees when in a tight or enclosed spot. It's bloody good excersize too, walked around 6 miles over the course of the day and even had a cheeky beer at lunch.
I was able to take several pheasant & a couple of partridge home from the shoot which we turned into sausage.
For January's sausage we kept things really simple and used a 'complete sausage mix' from Weschenfelder. These mixes allow for a fantastic entry sausage by providing everything you need to make your sausage, all you need to do is to add the meat at set ratio's and perhaps a little rusk or binder.
Keep the meat, mincer & water cold - as close to 0c as possible for mincing.
Ensure a good emulsion of meat and fat, you want to ensure that the meat sticks to your hands when held up.
I like to use the pre-spooled hog casings as they are so incredibly easy to use, simply soak ovenight & slide onto the horn. A little baking soda in the water will also make them super soft and less prone to breaking.
When filling the sausage, try to keep an even pressure on the casings so the filling is consistent. You want to be able to pinch & twist the casings without them bursting, this takes a little practice to get the feel right.
I always prick the sausages to remove any air pockets & this is also supposed to help the skin adhere to the meat as it dries creating a 'snappy casing' when biting into it.
In this video, I didn't link these, this is just showing a very simple method to get people started. We put the sausage in the fridge overnight before cooking them and to allow the flavours to mature.
Who I went with & products link
February - Beef & Horseraddish
This time we're are making Beef & Horseradish Sausages using the weschenfelderdirect complete sausage mix, sausage casings and vac seal bags.
We have 100% beef rib cap meat here as has a lovely 70/30 meat to fat ratio - a high fat content means you will have a juicy and not dry sausage so typically looking 70/30 although some recipies ask for more & some for less.
Remember, a complete sausage mix means all the spices, herbs etc are included in the pack meaning you simply need to weight out the meat & follow the instructions. For a beginner, these are a really good introduction to sausage as all the work has been done for you.
We made quite a large batch weighting in at 10kg which made around 50 large sausages. When we want to save some for the future, we like to use a vac sealer to pull out any air from the sausage as this really projects them from freezer burn and means whenever you want to eat them, you just pull out of the freezer.
This time, we started to link our sausages, theres a few different techniques for this also, this was a simple method, I twisted each sausage one by one to get nice consistent sizes then did a link knot so they hung hung in the fridge overnight in links of 3.
I'm no expert, just trying to show the steps, the process and what we do to make a sausage. These will get more complex through the series but if it inspires you to have a go, please do!!
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March - Boerewors
Apparently my pronunciation of Boerewors is absolutely awful in this video so dont hold it againt me too much, we're all learning!
This month was also made from a Weschenfelder sausage mix, again another really good option to those starting out with sausage making. This is the type of sausage you could use to empty the freezer and use a single meat or multiple. I decided to use a blend of 69 day, Dry Aged beef, fresh pork collar, mutton, venison and pork backfat, a real safari!
We made sure we had a 70% meat 30% fat content as we know that makes for a juicy sausage.
Now for the recipe pack, we add water and dark vinegar, I used a mix or malt & red wine vinegars. Adding the vinegar is adding acid which will denature the proteins and stop a full emulsification. This ended up making the overall texture a little crumbly but the fat content ensured it was juicy still. For me, next time, I might add some baking soda to the vinegar reduce the pH but still have the vinegar flavour. This will then allow for a full emulsification and a bouncy texture (see I'm learning).
These seemed to work best cooked over direct and indirect heat to get a crisp skin.
Definitely juicy, meaty and spiced without being overpowered & we learnt what acid will do in a sausage.
Products link
April - Lamb Merguez
April's episode is the lamb merguez, these are also made from one of the complete seasoning packs making life really easy for sausage making.
The flavours in merguez are salt, chilli, coriander, cumin, paprika & dried garlic, they are ever so slightly spiced and just a wonderful flavour, especially smoked or cooked on the bbq.
These were rather special as they were made from my own lambs in our little paddock which is always quite sad but im pleased we use as much as possible from them and can make sausages from the trim, stock from the bones & I know where every bit has gone.
These as always, we used a mix of 70/30 meat to fat ratio to get those lovely ratio's and juicy sausages.
These were also made with the pre-spooled casings, just soak in a little water overnight with a touch of baking soda to make them extra slippery and more forgiving. This is especially important as these were lamb casings which are thinner and more delicate than a hog casing so you have to be patient and more gentle handling the casings.
We smoked a lot of these and shared with the other chaps I run the paddock with, it's a great way to split the lamb trimmings as everyone gets sausage.
Products link
May - Supreme Pizza Sausage
This was the first episode we stopped using the complete sausage mixes and started to use some recipes we found online that we thought sounded good.
I watch "2 guys and a cooler" on Youtube and Eric has an absolute wealth of knowledge, hints and tips and absolutely helped me on my own sausage journey with some fantastic knowledge. If you stick to the end of the series, you may also see me feature in one of his videos'!!!
Theres a lot of detail in this sausage and an awful lot of preparation as this literally contains all the ingredients you would put onto a supreme pizza, minus the actual dough.
This is hands-down one of the best sausages from the entire series & one that my friends and fammily compare all others too. Its certainly a labour of love but a really amazing sausage and one ill make....and be asked to make....again and again.
This one also needs a bit of science, if you remember back to the boerwors sausage, the acid in the vinegar we added ate the proteins and made the texture a bit crumbly. We wanted to avoid the same thing haappening here so we used a pH meter to balance out and raise the pH of the tomato sauce. We added some baking soda to the sauce bring the acidity level from 3.4 to 5.6 so that it matched that of the pork. Ill add a link below to the pH meter if you want to pick one up.
Recipe:
6000 g pork shoulder 70/30
84 g salt
15 g garlic powder
15 g onion powder
12 g cayenne pepper
18 g red pepper flakes
18 g fennel seed
36 g paprika
600 g neutralized pizza sauce
120 g potato starch
300 g pepperoni chopped into small pieces
600 g mozzarella & cheddar cut into small cubes
120 g sauteed button mushrooms diced small
120 g sauteed bell peppers diced small
120 g sauteed onions diced small
300 g crispy bacon chopped
60 g black olives chopped
36 g fresh basil chopped finely
29-32mm hog casing
To Make the Neutralized Pizza Sauce
600 g pizza sauce
9 g baking soda
Products link
June - Sweet Italian Sausage
Ill admit it, this isn't a new recipe for us (like the others have been) but, I wanted to include this sausage in the series as its very simple and absolutely delicious. Its a good beginner sausage with a few ingredients and an outstanding result, if you can find it, I highly recommend finding the fennel pollen, its very expensive but you dont need a lot and it really packs a huge punch too. It's also very good for porchetta recipies.
This one is a 'fresh sausage' meaning so there's no nitrite or cures so you want to pay extra attention to the temperatures and use fresh ingredients to minimuse any risk of ill health. You will also want to eat these within 3 days of producing or vac pack and freeze for great results later. I always like to make a larger batch of these as they are so good on their own, on pizza, in a pasta dish etc.
We've made these so long, ive actually forgotten where the recipe came from but it's in my little black book of sausage.
As always, I like to use the pre-spooled casings soaked overnight with a touch of baking soda. The pre-spooled casings just make it so easy to throw a casing onto the horn and crack on with stuffing. We always prick our casings so air pockets can escape & it helps the skin attach to the meat for those snappy casings.
Recipe:
6kg of pork 70% meat 30% fat
108 grams of kosher salt, about 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon
90 grams of sugar
54 grams of fennel seeds
30 grams freshly cracked black pepper
20g chilli pepper
3 gram of nutmeg
3 teaspoon dried oregano
3 heaping teaspoon fennel pollen
1.5 cup chopped fresh parsley
1.5 cup white wine, chilled (we used gavi)
Products link
Bonus - Sweet Italian & Supreme Pizza Sausage Pizzas
In May / June's episodes we made the supreme pizza sausage and the sweet italian pizza so we decided to make some pizzas and add these sausages to them.
They were absolutely fantastic and the flavours worked so incredibly well.
I like to use the Stadler Pizza calculator to work out dough types and weights
July - The Birria Sausage
The next 4 episodes I filmed with my good friend Mitch from 'Wolf Meats Smoke' who I often bounce ideas off, these are all experimental sausages where we came up with the recipies, calculated the ingredients & worked out how to make them.
This was a sausage I had been thinking about for a while now, to see if you could get two colours (and in the future) two flavours into one sausage. I was really happy with the flavour of this one with a deep smoked chilli flavour that's spiced but not too spicy.
I love a birria taco and wanted to see if it was possible to get that flavour into a sausage, it worked so well in both flavour and presentation that ill be having a play with this in the future.
Recipe:
3200g beef cheek (cured)
800g fatty pork (cured)
20g Achiote paste blended with 100ml water along with 3 toasted arbol and 3 toasted guajillo chilli's (no seeds)
Check the pH of the achiote mix as you may need to raise the pH to 5.4 if too acidic.
60g fresh coriander
12g ground cumin
12g chipotle powder
8g Mexican oregano
8g coriander powder
12g black pepper
20g spicy paprika
20g sweet paprika
8g red pepper flakes
12g garlic powder
12g onion powder
100g potato starch
400ml Mexican beer
We split the sausage batter and mixed in some cuttlefish ink to darken one batch, then very gently and carefully loaded the hopper 50/50 with each half.
As always, pre-spooled hog casings used and pricked the skins to help get that snappy texture, we smoked the tasters on a large offset smoker from Ironbrand.
Products link
August - Buffalo Chicken Sausage
This was another episide with Mitch from 'Wolf Meats Smoke' this was one of his ideas for an experimental sausage to see if we could get the flavours of a Buffalo Chicken Wing into a sausage and ill be honest, this was an absolute triumph & worked extremely well.
Its a lot of work & some very cheffy steps thrown in but if you take your time and be patient, it promise it's worth it.
4kg chicken thigh (70% thigh, 30% chicken skin)
60g salt
22g Garlic
50g franks hot sauce powder (USA Import)
16g Buffalo Pearls
11g pepper
9g cayenne (optional)
130g milk powder
300g blue cheese crumbled and frozen
The pearls were made with neutralised Frank's red hot (which means adding baking soda to the hot sauce until the pH hits 5).
Then adding sodium alginate to the neutralised Frank's Red Hot & dropping into a bath of Calcium Carbonate to make the pearls (this isn't as scary as it sounds and are readily available from the usual online retailers). The pearls are then washed in water ready to be mixed through the batter nice and gently.
This really was an absolutely superb sausage, incredibly juicy and tons of flavour. The pearls worked amazing and even survived the freezer. Will defo make again and really encouraging that the theory behind it all worked so well. Hats off to Mitch for this one.
Products link
September - Beef Wellington Sausage
This was another episide with Mitch from 'Wolf Meats Smoke' this was one of my ideas to see if you could get the flavours of a Beef Wellington into a sausage. Whilst I think it had the same ingredients as a beef wellington (minus the pastry), I dont think I quite hit the nail on the head with the flavour. Saying that, it was still extremely tasty and had a wonderful flavour. With the prosciutto, mushrooms, wine & beef, this was a very expensive sausage to produce at around £3.50 per sausage.
It's very juicy, succulent and rich, you couldn't eat a lot of them!
Ingredients;
2400g beef
1600 pork
2000g mushroom
6 garlic cloves
2 medium white onions
10g black pepper
3 sprigs rosemary
50g salt (don't forget the prosciutto is salty)
20g English Mustard Powder
10g mustard seed
400ml white wine (we used gavi di gavi)
72 crisped up prosciutto rashers
25g unsalted butter
Fat free milk powder - to feel (~80g)
Crisp the prosciutto in the oven.
Make the duxelles by dicing the mushroom, onion, garlic, rosemary, salt & pepper sweating down with the butter.
Reduce the mushrooms down until most of the liquid is gone then add the wine and reduce again until no liquid remains. This will take a while.
Then grind, stuff, mix and case them up.
Products link
October - Lamb Mojito Sausage
This was another Sausage that Mitch and I put together, this was one of Mitch's experimental sausages. Only saying experimental due to the fact we came up with these recipies rather than finding them but applying our knowledge and skills from the series.
These were wonderful, sweet, fruity, juicy and a favourite of my Mrs. As we mentioned before with lamb casings, you have to take care as they aren't as tough and durable as pork so be patient when using them.
Recipe:
3kg lamb shoulder
1kg lamb fat
40g salt
3g Lime Zest
3g Onion powder
1g cumin
3g diced fresh mint (rest coming from mojito)
120g diced apricot (visual)
200ml mojito mix
80g milk powder
Mojito mix -reduce down to half
Apricot puree 150ml
Water 300ml
18 fresh mint leaves
1.5limes
With an experimental sausage, its always work cooking off a little of the batter before you put into the casing just to give yourself the opportunity to taste and adjust the seasning if needed.
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November - Sweet Lamb Merguez Sausage
This time we have gone back full circle with the Merguez Sausages made from the complete sausage mix again & our own lambs again.
I wanted to showcase that you can even adjust and play with the pre-mixes too, we added some dried apricot & extra chilli to these to give a bit of an extra kick to offset the sweetness we put in through the apricot.
Decembers sausage is going to be absolutely wild so we went for a simple yet flavourful one in November!
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December - The Turducken Sausage
Well here it is folks, the final sausage of the 2024 sausage series, we thought we would go out with a big one and this is absolutely a bang! Turkey, duck & chicken all stuffed inside a single casing, I'm really pleased with how this came out!
The flavours are absolutely on point and the three elements binded perfectly together inside the casing making one uniform sausage. I could eat all of these separately as their own distinct sausage but they worked perfectly together too. I didn't want any of the flavours to be so powerful that they wouldn't work on a thanksgiving meal or Christmas Meal. If I had to pick a favourite, I think the duck l'orange really came through very nicely.
The recipe is:
Turkey Sausage
3000 g Turkey - 70% meat 30% turkey skin
50 g kosher salt
1070 g pork back fat
250 g finely diced yellow onion (softened)
5 g grated lemon zest
5 g grated fresh ginger
5 g ground white pepper
20 g finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 g grated nutmeg
Duck l'orange Sausage
3000 g duck meat 70% Duck Meat 30% Duck Skin
1333 g fatty pork shoulder
77 g kosher salt
45 g brown sugar
4.5 g ground cloves
4.5 g cayenne pepper
27 g ground black pepper
30 g garlic cloves, minced (about 9–10 cloves, depending on size)
Zest of 1.5 oranges
60 g triple sec (or other orange liqueur)
120 g orange juice
Chicken
3000 g chicken - 70% Meat 30% Skin
8 slices streaky bacon, rind removed crisped and roughly chopped
500g crispy stuffing (we used orange & cranberry)
4 teaspoons dried chives
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 teaspoon ground pepper
8 tablespoons parmesan cheese (approximately 50 g)
4 tablespoons garlic, crushed (approximately 24 g)
I added a tiny bit of potato starch in to each mix to help with the bind & keeping things juicy.
This isn't a sausage that I would make again in a hurry, mainly due to the work involved and the amount of washing up that came from this style, it absolutely delivered in texture, flavour and technique though.
I hope you all enjoyed the series and will join me for another series in 2025!
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