Making sausage excellently at home

Welcome back to another video, folks. We're making sausage with our beautiful forest raised pork. Today I wanted to show you the recipes, the chemistry and techniques for making awesome sausage, Starting by just mixing spices and potato starch and salt. So sausage making has some critical points to pay attention to, right?

Yes.

So fat to meat ratio and salt concentration is super important and then temperature for the chemistry. Yeah. What's the basic principle before we get started?

So there needs to be the right amount of salt to fat and then it needs to be heated to the correct degree.

These are sausages that we're making. Stuffing and then boiling.

Yeah.

And then freezing.

So this isn't as important to do if you're not freezing them, but we're.

Freezing them and we want to maintain the taste and texture and like that they don't leach.

Like if you're frying it and then all of a sudden all the fat is just in the pan instead of.

So it's got to have the right amount of starches and things and salt balance for the chemistry of the sausage to hold the moisture.

Yeah. And their qualities. Yeah, yeah.

So we're going to lead you through that today. You've done some high level sausage making trainings, right?

Yes, very high level. Well, actually it is. It's Nofima in Norway, which is, I think, like, they're the biggest producers of recipes for sausage and other meat production. And so this is their recipe which is like a standard ratio. Here you have the percentage. So this is kind of. You can apply it to any kind of. What is it called? Like, spices. You can put any spices. So this is a sausage that I made with tons of different.

I got like an Italian style sausage.

And this is a herb sausage and.

A herb style sausage.

And in this recipe, it's meant to only have pork and pork fat, but our pork is so fatty that we're mixing out a kilo of the pork with beef to make it leaner.

So Nora froze down when we processed the pig back in the summer, she already weighed out fats with meat. And then we took one of our bulls, or young bulls, that is very, very lean. So that's a really nice compliment to get the fat ratio. Why is the fat ratio important?

It's all chemistry, which is actually very fascinating and I don't really understand it, but it's all meant to go in the grinder in a specific order, at a specific temperature, in a specific ratio. So it binds and gets the qualities that you want in a sausage, I guess, like some sausages that you make you make them at home and then you fry them. And the fat is in the pan and you're biting into a sausage that is falling apart. So the ratio and the order is important so that you get a solid, juicy sausage.

So we're adding milk, whole milk to the recipe as well as potato starch. And the temperature is really critical. What's the temperatures we're working at? So we're defrosting this slightly so that the machine can actually cut and mix.

Yes. So I have like the different steps where the meat and salt is added at first, where the temperature should be around 0 degrees. And then you're doing it until it kind of starts binding and it becomes almost like, you can see it clump up a bit. Then you add the milk and then you add everything with starch. So that would be the potato flour and then all the spices and then the last mix of the milk. Then you add the fat. So you need to add the fat at last. And then it needs to reach a temperature of 15 degrees.

That's the temperature we're packing at the.

Yes, that's the temperature that we're packing at. So it has to go from 0 degrees to 15 degrees before it's stuffed.

And that's warming up in the mixer. So the mixer is turning a bowl and chopping and incorporating all the herbs and everything really well. And then these sausages get. Either they can be smoked or they can be boiled, right?

Yeah.

And that creates the reaction with the starches and binds everything together. Normally that's done at 72 degrees, but we've actually had to substitute a little bit of cornstarch just because we didn't have enough potato starch. And it's not a direct replacement. Potato starch makes a lot more stronger gel and is better for this kind of sausage making. But cornstarch works, but it has a slightly different texture and it affects the freezing ability. So we've had to create a mix. And we think we're going to take the temperature up to 75 degrees internally, because that sets the catalyst for the cornstarch.

After they've been stuffed, we are going to cook them or boil them until they reach then about 75 degrees instead of 72 degrees, which is what they would do with just potato starch. And then when they reach that, they very fast have to go straight into.

So we're going to stick them in ice water to cool them as fast as possible, and then we can pack them down and freeze them. Yep, perfect. It's gonna be a long day. So we've prepared all the spice mixes just to run through the recipe if you're interested. This is to make five kilo batches of sausages. We've got 2.25 kilos of meat, but we've taken a kilo out the pork meat and added the beef because it's much leaner. And then 0.75 kilos of fat and 1.6 kilos of fresh milk. And we've got two spice mixes going on just to tell you what those are. So for the herby sausage that you see here, that's 30 grams of fresh thyme, 26 grams fresh basil, 6 grams fresh mint, 1 1/2 grams of fresh oregano, 2 of dried mint and 400 grams of honey. And then we've got a fennel based sausage that's got 30 grams of white pepper, 20 grams, sorry, 30 grams of dried garlic, 20 grams white pepper, 20 grams black pepper, 32 grams smoked paprika, 20 grams fennel, 16 grams chili, but we added a little bit of onion powder more and a little bit more fennel for this recipe. Frosting some milk that we have spare in the freezer and that's a obviously liquid and contains more protein. And the protein content really gives you the sort of bite and texture of the final sausage. So these recipes are formulated around very specific science and chemistry.

The protein is what determines the firmness. There should not be over 2% salt in the sausage mix. And the starch has no function unless it's being heated, which is what we're doing when we're boiling it. And then it should. The bigger the particles when you're mixing the sausage mix, the more it needs to rest to reach that 15 degree temperature before you stuff it.

So important next step is to put water through the sheepskins. We're using sheepskin guts for the sausage, 21 to 23 mil. Then we use a bigger one for the next sausage, but they've been salted heavily to preserve them. So we're just washing water through them and that also helps lubricate them. For the sausage stuffing machine. You can see I'm just passing this bubble of water through them and putting them into fresh water so they're ready to use. This is a professional or semi professional sausage mixing machine. And the benefit of a machine like this is that it mixes and smashes meat even when it's frozen. So it's a lot more powerful than a home mixer. And this meat is, you know, solid blocks that it's not really possible with a Domestic home machine. But you could use the machine, but you'd have to let it thaw a little bit more and that would compromise the temperature for the chemistry.

I guess you could use like a kitchen, as you call it, kitchen aid. But it wouldn't be able to take the frozen. So then you might have to add ice cubes or you might have to add something to keep it at the temperature. Yeah, at the right temperature.

Simple mathematics. These have a diameter of 2 cm, area is PI R squared, so that means the end volume area is 3.14 centimeters. So if they're five meters long, they hold about one and a half litres each. So we estimate we'll need about six or seven for a mix. This machine can take about five kilos. So we're going to crack these down into slightly smaller starting pieces. And it's the back fats that we're using for sausage making. So the meat is too frozen. I'm using my lovely one sided axe. This is for actually squaring off logs for timber houses. So it's very effective at chopping frozen meat in half too. So we're just getting it a bit smaller that the machine can handle.

And only the meat and salt.

No fat at this point or the additional fat. Is super fun.

So we know it's ready when it starts to cool. Like now it's, it's clumping up.

That's ready for the next step, which is milk.

That is milk.

But all of the proteins go in before we add the fat. So as that starts clumping, the milk is added slowly. That will start to make it into more of a paste.

So we will add some of the milk after we've added the starch and the spices.

That is the basis of making food you can't buy in shops. So this is forest raised pork processed on the farm by ourselves with fresh herbs, no preservatives, just the way we want it. More like a breakfast sausage. So we're adding a liquid honey just to make it easier to incorporate little sweetness. Milk goes in now, so fat food's going in now. That's going to make the machine work a bit harder. Again, that's a texture rich. So at this point the starches, although they bind some of the liquid in, they're not actively binding until they're heated. Taking a couple of minutes to mix and a couple more minutes mixing with the flat milk in now and how long we keep processing it determines how large the flat particles are, which is down to personal preference. Important step is tasting. See if we actually like the recipe. So at last point we can change it. And I'm snacking on some sausage rolls, like making snacks for the kids with our forest raised pork and sourdough puff pastry, which you can find all about in our cookbook. If you haven't read that yet. It's recipes of how to eat, preserve, cook everything on the farm and from the wild. It's a year's worth of eating. Check it out in the links in my bio. It's got a really nice bounce and.

You see how all the juices came out when you cut it and not in the pan.

That's a really important thing. This recipe and the chemistry is what gives this lovely bouncy texture. All the liquids kept in the sausage not coming out in the pan. As Noah said, juicy, juicy, very nice texture. And once we boil these as well, that will really firm up that texture. Very delicate flavour. The herbs really come alive.

Yeah, but if you didn't like it, you couldn't change the salt at this point.

You can add different flavourings but not change the salt ratio. That's critical. But we love that. So it's time to get on with stuffing. Okay, so we're gonna prepare the sausage stuffing machine. Now we have a foot powered hydraulic machine, but you don't need that. You can use a simple hand stuffer. This just makes it practical if you're doing it at a larger scale. Important to keep these rings greased with fats, they work well and seal the chamber. But what we're going to do is stuff we just made that we've tested and we like into here to warm up before stuffing and that allows us to make the other mix with a different recipe and then we'll be ready to stuff everything at one time. When you're filling these, you want to just throw clumps of the mix in so you don't get air pockets. That affects obviously when you're filling the sausage skins that we fed onto here, we don't want air bubbles in there. It just creates a problem in the workflow at the other end. We've set up our slaughtery for chicken on the farm with license to just wash with hot soapy water and then a cold rinse. Here we're using hot soapy water and then an organic kind of disinfectant just to keep everything clean and working good. You don't need any harsh chemicals for any of these processes in the household. Second mix going on. Okay, frying out the second recipe for testing. Nice. This is the one with fennel and chili, we added a bit more fennel than the recipe made. That's good. Beautiful texture. It's got a nice amount of spice. Not too hot, but very warming. Yeah, we like it. Well, such is farm life. This sheep has an accident with a cow and I've decided to process her for the freezer. Not ideal and certainly interrupting the day with stuffing all those sausages. But if this animal is to feed a family for months to come, then it needs to be done right now. And that's often how farming is, one thing after another. So I'm going to take a quick break in the day to get this animal in the freezer so we can make best use of its life. And then we'll get back into sausage. Okay, dealt with the sheep. Next step is to put the skins onto the feeder and then make sure you're choosing the right nozzle. And that's why the water inside so important to keep it all lubricated and moving along smoothly. And you want to just pay attention to bunching the skin on neatly and nicely. There's a lot about feeding, feel and pressure with sausage making and just got to develop that through practice. And I'm not a professional by any means, but we do make probably a few hundred kilos of sausage Merciers, and so you get a feel of it pretty quick, like anything. Practice. So you may have noticed I'm wearing our new Ridgedale merch and we've got these beautiful organic sweaters as well as T shirts embroidered, really nice quality. We've also got hats. So if you're a fan of the farm or you want to buy a gift for someone for Christmas, you can find these in the link in our bio now. So one of the important things with stuffing is to make sure it's even and to feed it with a bit of pressure with your fingers to make sure it's not over full or under full. If it's over full, it cracks and you have to restart a bit the process. And if it's too full, when you go to link the sausages, it will split as well. And if it's underfill, it's just not satisfying, is it? So here I got a split. So I have to end that and make it into two new sausages. Start the process again. Okay, so to link the sausages, start by rolling the first one and then miss the length and pinch and roll the same way in every instance. So I miss one, go to the next link, pinch, roll, always in the same direction. Here I'm doing away from me. And that ensures that they won't untangle themselves as we go along. So you can do this and then you can link them together. If you want to bunch them, you can tuck them through each other and make links. But we're just going to do it like this for cooking. So I miss one and go to the next one and just portion them up. For good breakfast sized sausages, if they're uneven, then it's good to just take a little bit of time to spread the mixture evenly. Otherwise you'll get bursts and you don't really want that. Okay, next step is boiling the sausages. We're going to get the to 75 degrees Celsius. I've got the sous vide on just to keep the water at the right temperature. We're just going to pile these in. It's going to take a while because that's a lot of cold meat obviously going in the pan. And to weigh them under water, we're going to use this pan, just weigh them down a bit. So it's a bit of a waiting game now. Okay, so if we want to create a linkage, what you typically do is put one like so to start off with and then you just keep building. So you take a pair, spin that round, fold one through, twist that all around, and then we start working our way up like so. Just folding them between. This is useful if you're hanging sausages, but also use it to cook them. So they're compact. Sausages have reached temperature inside. Now, normally you wouldn't stick your hands in 85 degrees, but Laura's quite alcohol. So these go into ice water now and arrest the cooking process. Okay, these sausages are cooled down, looking beautiful. So these are essentially cooked. You could eat them, but obviously you want to roast or fry them to brown the skin. Second batch is going in now. Okay, sausages have finished cooking and they've chilled, so the cooking process has stopped. So now I'm just chopping them down into singles and we're draining them so we can vacuum pack them in usable sizes. And they're stable now. They've been cooked, so even if they're cut at the ends, no sausage can escape. So vacuum packed like this, these sausages will maintain their texture and freshness really well. And we'll be able to eat these for months now and we'll just be able to take them out, defrost them, fry them or roast them. Perfect. All right. I hope you found that useful, folks. That's it for the video if you want to find out more about farming or how to utilise the produce that we produce on the farm, as well as how to build infrastructure at low cost, then you can find all our books in the links in our bio below. Thanks so much for watching folks. Don't forget to click, subscribe and see you in the video soon.