New To Making Sausage

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to purchase Venison, Pork Butt, Pork Trimmings, Beef Trimmings, Natural Hog & Sheep Casings, and spices? I know some of these items you can get at the grocery store but not all. Also if anyone wants to share any recipes that will work as well.

Gonna be some expensive sausage if you're buying venison. I buy pork butt when on sale for under $1 and keep in the freezer until I'm ready to use. I use Allied Kenco in Houston for casings. Dealer's choice on spices depending on what you want to make. I use this site a lot for ideas http://lpoli.50webs.com/

Like Tres said, I wouldn't buy venison to make sausage, if you don't have any use beef.

If you have a local meat market they more than likely carry most of what you need, that is where we get our casings tying string etc.

a good fatty pork butt has the fat you need. if not, you can get pork belly at most asian stores.

Check out Clifco spices on Rendon Rd in Burleson, 817-478-8134. German seasonings are really good!

You might try trading some links for venison with someone on the forum.

If your going down this way soon I got a whole ham from a buck this year your welcome to

A couple of suggestions I have are: Start with smaller batches, 5 or 10 pounds. Anything more is hard to mix by hand. Also, even for small batches I would buy a sausage stuffer. I use a 5-pound vertical stuffer from LEM. I even use it with the larges tube to stuff summer sausage casings or plastic sleeves for ground meat.

http://www.lemproducts.com/product/5lb-stainless-steel-vertical-sausage-stuffer/sausage-stuffers



If you want to do bigger batches, then I would recommend a mixer tub. My tub holds 20 pounds which is all my smoker can handle in one batch. Cranking the handle for 5-6 minutes is MUCH easier than trying to mix 20 pounds by hand.

Here's an example

http://www.lemproducts.com/product/manual-meat-mixer-20-lb/butcher-meat-mixers

I will be close to that way this weekend.

Haven't made any yet, but I have been getting prepared. Still sitting on some already made in the freezer. Bought a grinder and stuffer on clearance, so I will be ready to go. My taxi. & friend has made it 40+ years and now a days he just uses pork butts or picnics since he no longer hunts. You should be able to mix 50/50 with venison and pork butt. Look into the LEM mixes to get started. I think you can buy mixes for 5# batches. Gets you a starting point to see what you like and what you don't.

Now what I don't know or have information on is the grinder plates for the coarseness of the sausage. I tend to like a coarse ground sausage better than the stuff you find at the store.

For sausage spices, I settled on TexJoy Sausage Seasoning. A neighbor used to own a BBQ joint just SW of Austin (in Bee Cave) and they made their own sausage. He said he tried various seasonings, but liked the TexJoy the best. I agree! I don't find it in the stores around central Texas, but I pick it up when I visit relatives in SE Texas. The stuff is made in Beaumont, and they sell via the internet. To a 12 oz container (which makes 40# of sausage) I add 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper to spice it up a little.

Add a little sage and it make very good breakfast sausage also.