All About Sausage

Sausage History
The word sausage originally comes from the Latin word salsus, which means salted or preserved. In the days of old people did not have refrigeration to preserve their meat and so making sausage was a way of overcoming this problem.
Dry sausage was born as a result of the discovery of new spices, which helped to enhance, flavor and preserve the meat. Different countries and different cities within those countries started producing their own distinctive types of sausage, both fresh and dry. These different types of sausage were mostly influenced by the availability of ingredients as well as the climate.
Some parts of the world with periods of cold climate, such as northern Europe were able to keep their fresh sausage without refrigeration, during the cold months. They also developed a process of smoking the sausage to help preserve the meat during the warmer months. The hotter climates in the south of Europe developed dry sausage, which did not need refrigeration at all.
Basically people living in particular areas developed their own types of sausage and that sausage became associated with the area. For example Bologna originated in the town of Bologna in Northern Italy, Lyons sausage from Lyons in France and Berliner sausage from Berlin in Germany.

Types of Sausage
Cooked Sausage
Made with fresh meats and then fully cooked. The sausage is either eaten immediately after cooking or must be refrigerated and is usually reheated before eating. Examples include Braunschweiger, Veal sausage and Liver sausage.
Cooked Smoked Sausage
Much the same as cooked sausage, but it is cooked and then smoked, or smoke-cooked. It can be eaten hot or cold, but is stored in the refrigerator. Examples include Wieners, Kielbasa and Bologna.
Fresh Sausage
Made from meats that have not been previously cured. This sausage must be refrigerated and thoroughly cooked before eating. Examples include Boerewors, Italian Pork sausage and Fresh Beef sausage.
Fresh Smoked Sausage
This is fresh sausage that is smoked. After smoking, the sausage can then be refrigerated and cooked thoroughly before eating. Examples include Mettwurst and Roumanian sausage.
Dry Sausage
Made from a selection of meats. These are the most complicated of all sausages to make, as the drying process has to be carefully controlled. Once produced this type of sausage can be readily eaten, and will keep for very long periods under refrigeration. Examples include Salami’s and Summer sausage.
Grinders and Stuffers
This is obviously a very important part of sausage making. There are a multitude of different types of grinders and stuffers out there and you pretty much get what you pay for.
For those of you who know your butcher very well, he or she might grind your meat for you. This is obviously the cheapest option, but for those of you who are serious about sausage making, you might want to invest in a good grinder. Of course size matters ! We have learnt over the years that bigger is better … you will grow into it.
You will want a grinder that has different cutting plates to be able to grind your meat to the correct consistency. Cutting plates mostly come in four sizes:
3/4 inch Coarse grind
3/8 inch Medium-course grind
3/16 inch Medium grind
1/8 inch Fine grind
You can get a manually operated or an electric grinder. Make sure your grinder comes with a sausage stuffing attachment and different sized stuffing horns. This will enable you to stuff different size sausage casings. If you are going to be making a lot of sausage you might want to consider buying an electric grinder and a separate sausage stuffing device that allows you to stuff a lot of product more efficiently. We use an electric meat grinder, which is powered by a 220V motor, and then have a separate sausage stuffer, the combination of which works extremely well for us.
If any of you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer at home you can buy a Kitchen Aid grinder and stuffing attachment which works well.
Mail order sources for equipment, which we use, are:
Stuffers Supply Company (Located in Canada but will ship to USA)
Eldon's Jerky and Sausage Supply
Allied Kenco Sales
The Sausage Maker

Cuts of Meat for Sausage
We have only made sausage using pork and beef, and so these two are discussed below. No, we do not use lips, noses and eyeballs. Some people do, which is why we make our own sausage !
Pork
We have found that if a sausage recipe calls for ground pork, to use Boston butt or shoulder. This meat has the good balance of fat-to-lean ratio, and yields a wonderful product. Some recipes will call for a mixture of lean pork to be mixed with pork fat. Why bother with all this when you can buy a Boston butt. Remember this, sausage making fans, Pork fat rules !!
Beef
Much like the pork recommendation above, we like to use a cut of beef that has the correct amount of fat content. Chuck, blade and shoulder cuts of beef work well.

Casings
Casings come in a variety of sizes and are usually sold by the hank, bundle, cap or ounce. It is always difficult to estimate how much casing you will need to stuff your batch of sausage. A few rules of thumb:
1 pound of meat will stuff about 2 feet of medium-size hog casing (32-35 mm)
1 pound of meat will stuff about 4 feet of medium-size lamb casing (20-22 mm)
1 ounce of medium-size hog casing (32-35 mm) will stuff about 8 feet of sausage
1 pound of medium-size lamb casing (20-22 mm) will stuff about 16 feet of sausage
Types of Casings
Lamb and Sheep Casing
These casings are very tender, and used for sausages such as breakfast sausage, frankfurters, and fresh pork sausage.
Hog Casing
Undoubtedly the most popular casing which can actually be used for almost any sausage. As it is popular it is normally easier for the home sausage maker to find.
Beef Bungs, Rounds, and Casing
For sausages that require a very thick casing, such as bologna and salami.
Collagen Casing
This casing is made from the gelatinous substance found in the connective tissue, bones and cartilage of all mammals. The substance is harvested from the animals and reconstructed in the form of a casing. Most sausage is the USA is stuffed into this casing.
Fibrous Casing
This casing is used to make dry and semi-dry sausage. The fibrous casing is extremely strong and is used to stuff sausage that is very tightly packed, as it will not break. The inside of this casing is coated with protein that allows it to shrink with the meat as it dries out.
Muslin Casing
Strangely enough, this casing is made of muslin, and is used for sausages such as liverwurst, blood sausage, salami’s and bologna’s.
Cellulosic Casing
This is an artificial casing, made from solubilized cotton linters. It is very uniform, strong and not quite as susceptible to bacteria as other types of casings. Skinless hotdogs are made with cellulosic casings.
Synthetic Casing
This casing is made from alginates, and requires no refrigeration. It is used by mass producers and can be made in different colors. Red for bologna, clear for some salami’s and white for liverwurst. Much like the cellulosic casing it is uniform and strong.
We prefer to use natural casings for our sausage. A natural casing in our opinion gives the best flavour and appearance to the final product. A natural casing enhances and complements the natural juices and quality of the meat and spices. Natural cases permit deep smoke penetration if you are smoking your sausage.
Where to Get CasingsCasings are sometime difficult to get, especially in the quantities that the home sausage maker uses. We mostly use hog casings and these are somewhat easier to come by. If you know of a store that specializes in making different kinds of sausage, chances are they will have different types of casings. Often they have the casings, but again are in large quantities. The stores often do not know how to break up the large quantity and price the smaller amounts.
Casings are normally bought soaking in brine or packed in salt. Remember that if you buy too much casing you can take the leftover casings, rinse, pack in salt and refrigerate for next time.
Mail order sources, which we use for casings, are:
Stuffers Supply Company (Located in Canada but will ship to USA)
Eldon's Jerky and Sausage Supply
Syracuse Casing Co. INC.
The Sausage Maker
Note that if you call Stuffers Supply Company ask to speak to Bill Leatham. He is an extremely helpful and knowledgeable individual on the subject of casings.
Preparing Casings for Stuffing
Casings are bought in varous forms:
Dry Salt Pack
Excess moisture is removed for a semi-dry state.
Slush or Preflushed Packed
Casings are very soft and flexible and do not require flushing prior to use.
Pretubed Casings
Each strand is shirred on a tube to allow one-step loading onto the stuffing horn, without flushing.
We use natural dry salt packed casings and there are five steps to preparing these for stuffing:
Rinse salt from the casings with fresh water.
Soften the casings by soaking in fresh water at room temperature of 70 F for 45 minutes to one hour. When you place the casings in the water, massage them somewhat with your hands to seperate the strands and prevent dry spots which may occur when stuffing.
Rinse the casings by putting one end over the faucet and running fresh water through the casing.
Take casings to stuffing table. Place in a bath of fresh water. This water should be warmer (110 F) to render a little of the natural fat in the casing. This will help the casing slide onto and off the stuffing horn.
Preflush casings by introducing water into the casings and allow to run through the casing. This will also facilitate getting the casing on the filling horn and moving the casing smoothly during the filling process.
Smoking Sausage
In the old days meat was smoked as a means of preservation. Today meat is smoked to add flavor more than anything else.
So how does smoke preserve meat ? Well smoke consists of tiny droplets of various natural chemicals such as aldehydes, phenols, ketones, and carbolic acid. These chemicals condense on the food that you are smoking. Some of these chemicals will make their way into the meat, whereas others will settle on the surface. This serves two purposes, firstly to give the meat a smoky flavor and secondly these natural chemicals also kill or stop the formation of bacteria, yeast, and mold microorganisms, which start decay. Phenols in the smoke prevent the oils and fats from turning rancid.
When smoking fresh sausage always hang-dry it first. If the sausage has surface moisture on the casing you will end up with a mottled surface on your finished product. We turn the central air conditioning up full until the house gets really cold. Cover a broom handle with aluminum foil and straddle between two chairs. Hang the fresh sausage over the broom handle until the casings are dry. Make sure that the sausage stays cool, or bacteria will develop. If the sausage has a lot of liquid it will drip from the casings as they dry, so you may want to put something down on the floor to catch the drippings.How much you smoke your meat is really a matter of taste. After hot smoking, remove the sausage and shower with cold water. We just remove the sausage from the smoker keeping it on the hanging rods. Position the hanging rods between two boxes and spray the sausage down with the garden hose). This keeps the meat from shriveling up. If the sausage becomes shriveled, cook in hot water until they plump up and then shower with cold water. Be sure to refrigerate it shortly after you have finished smoking
When smoking dry sausage you can either smoke the sausage for flavor and then hang in a cool place to dry slowly, or you can dry your sausage at the same time as smoking it. This kind of sausage is ready to eat when it is completely dry and does not need refrigeration.
Hot Smoking means the sausage is both flavored and cooked with hot smoke.
Cold Smoking means the sausage is flavored only.
When smoking sausage, you must take precautions to prevent botulism! (See next section for more information on botulism)

Smoking Tips
Keep a logbook and record what you do each time.
Make sure that your sausages do not touch when they are in the smoker.
Experiment while you are smoking. Cut off a piece of sausage, cook and taste it to see if it has been smoked enough.
Do not oversmoke your sausage. Undersmoked sausage is edible, oversmoked is not.
Do not raise the temperature too fast during smoking. This will cause the sausage to sweat and cause uneven smoking and mottling. When hot smoking start your temperature at about 120 F, and move up from there in steps.
Always hang-dry your sausage before smoking. Make sure that it is in a cool place when you do this, you do not want bacteria to start developing.
Remember that if you have a lot of leftover casings, rinse, drain and pack them in salt, then store in the refrigerator for next time.
Botulism
Botulism is a serious form of food poisoning caused by eating food contaminated with the deadly toxin botulin. Foodborne botulism was first identified in Europe during the 1800s as a problem in - sausage. Then name botulin even comes from the Latin word for sausage, botulus. Botulin is particularly insidious because it can exist without a foul odor or other sign of contamination. This is probably going to be more than you care to read about botulism but it is very serious form of poisoning and precautions must be taken to prevent it.
Symptoms of botulism poisoning usually appear suddenly within 18 to 36 hours after eating contaminated food. These symptoms include blurred or double vision, droopy eyelids, dry mouth, slurred speech, swallowing difficulty, vomiting, diarrhea and muscle weakness. Botulism can lead to death without the proper medical treatment.
The toxin is usually found in contaminated or improperly prepared canned foods. If you ever see a bulging can of food, do not open it – throw it away. It may very well be contaminated. Botulin can also exist in sausage and that is what we are discussing here.
The conditions that are necessary to produce foods contaminated with botulin include lack of oxygen, low acidity, the presence of moisture, and temperatures between 40 degrees and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. All of these conditions can be present when smoking sausage: lack of oxygen from the smoking, low acidity and moisture in the meat and smoking temperatures in the above range.
Cures containing sodium nitrite must be used to prevent the occurrence of botulin contamination in smoked sausage. Suppliers of sausage making equipment and supplies, and some butcher shops sell cures. Some names these cures are sold under include Prague Powder No. 1, Insta Cure and Heller’s Complete Cure. Morton Salt also sells these products and they publish an excellent booklet that discusses the use of cures titled 'Home Meat Curing Guide'.
Mail order sources, which we use for cures, are:
Stuffers Supply Company (Located in Canada but will ship to USA)
Eldon's Jerky and Sausage Supply
The Sausage Maker
Allied Kenco
Handle cures carefully and follow the directions on the package. Be sure to measure or weigh cures accurately. The cure should be mixed well with the water or other liquid that you will mix with the meat. Be sure to distribute the liquid containing the cure over the meat evenly.
This is clearly not intended to be a complete discussion of botulism, it’s causes or when, where or in what it can exist. Use your favorite search engine to search "botulism" for more information. This writing is meant to alert you to the danger of botulism when smoking sausage and the need to take precautions to prevent it.
If you are not using a cure in your sausage, don’t smoke it!