Nah, not at all. I just like to eat sausage, and I get much more enjoyment out of eating things I've made myself.
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Same here. The taste of fresh sausage is just so much better. I usually save a bit out when we're stuffing into casings to make up a patty or two when we're done.
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I've had a KA commercial stand mixer for years, that's been used for grinding and making sausage, among other things. Making large batches, say 5 lbs +, becomes a day long project with cutting, chilling and grinding the meat, then chilling the ground meat and stuffing the casing.

I got a LEM Products #10 stainless steel meat grinder for my birthday, at a leisurely pace it took barely more than a minute to grind 2 lbs of fresh lamb for burgers.

Plan on making 10 lbs of Italian sausage next week, hopefully it can stuff casing as fast as it can grind.
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i make my own sausages on a regular basis

the recipes i use have been handed down for years and i have never gotten any complaints

after the first time trying the brat recipe i can no longer eat any of the commercial brands

i have a big industrial grinder which is probably as old as myself at least

i can crank out 100 lbs of sausages by myself easily in an afternoon

i think the secret is basically finding the recipe you like best and making the sausage to suit yourself

im not real happy with the several breakfast sausage recipes i have experimented with yet but i figure its easy to buy that stuff and i dont eat it so much mostly just use it to make gravy

though i did watch emiril make some once and i want to try his recipe sometime

for brats you can find many old german recipes and they tend to be very good

k
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We make alot of Goetta here in Cincy. A yummy mixture of Pinhead oats, pork(or sausage) and ground beef seasoned to taste and then fried up nice and crispy!
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Either of you like to share a recipe or two? :-)
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I made my first batch about a year ago. Cold smoked it. Keyboards have nothing on small hand grinders for carpal tunnel...
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Here's a thread I posted a few months ago about the sausage I was making with a buddy of mine.

We motorized a hand grinder. It cuts through the meat pretty quickly. Now we just need to get a better stuffer.

Next fall we are going to try smoking some.
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Thought I'd bump this up again. A good friend of mine got some venison. So we cut a couple of steaks, mixed some up with ground beef for burgers, and mixed some with pork to make sausage. The only thing that sucks is I did the sausage spices by eye, and didn't write anything down. Of course, everyone loved the sample patty we fried up, so I'll have to figure out how to recreate it next time.
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I'll have to take some pics showin how we make sausage at work



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Now playing: Blake Shelton - It Ain't Easy Bein' Me
via FoxyTunes
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Keeping a note book for your recipes and fine tuning is key. I've tried a couple of recipes that had way too much salt in them for my taste. I'll know better next time.
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Yeah, I actually put together an Excel spreadsheet where I could plug in the weight of the meat, and get measurements for the spices of my most commonly used recipes. I just haven't had the time to write up custom fraction formatting for the cells, so I get weird things like "1/6 Tbsp Cumin"
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Yeah, I use Excel too. I use a logbook for the recipes, noting any tweaks or anything else we change, noting results, and keeping track of how much we have made.

Have you taken any pics of your operation?

Here's a link to a PDF doc with a bunch of recipes.

The Hunters Sausage is our go to recipe.
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Have you got the formatting figured out? I'd love to see the formulas if so.

Well, our "operation" just consists of a KitchenAid 5 Pro with grinder and stuffer attachments. A big batch for us is 10 lbs. I may take some pics next time around just for fun.

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check those recipes out.
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I make quite a bit of sausage... Mostly I use a commercial seasoning by the name of Leggs. It is widely available.

Here is another site I have used recipes from for sausage and jerky.

http://www.3men.com/index.htm
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Leggs is the deal.
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Not really sausage, unless you make "Ring Goetta" by casing it.
Try the following Cincinnati tradition - Goetta (say "getta") :-)

Kid Rich's Goetta

INGREDIENTS:

3 quarts water
2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons dried savory
1 teaspoon garlic powder
5 cups steel cut or "pinhead" oats
2 lbs ground beef (80/20)
2 lbs ground pork sausage (half of it "hot")
2 large onions, diced

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat water, salt, pepper and spices in slow-cooker/crock-pot set to "high" for 30 minutes. Add oats, cover, and cook for 90 minutes.

2. Mix beef, pork, and onions in large bowl. Stir meat into cooking oats, reduce heat to low, and cook for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. (Watch for lumps or clumps of meat.)

3. Pour mixture into five or six aluminum bread pans and allow to cool until firm.

4. Slice goetta loaves into 1/4" slabs and cook on oiled skillet set to 325 degrees for approximately 30 minutes until evenly brown. Serve with eggs, toast, and good coffee. Freeze remaining loaves.
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i didn't do anything fancy, but I will send you what I have later.
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That looks similar to scrapple, except scrapple is made with cornmeal instead of oats.

I'd appreciate that, thanks!
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Scrapple = Everything but the Oink! Man how I miss that! :-)

The best is made by: http://www.habbersettscrapple.com/

Here's an old recipe:

4 Pigs knuckles
1 Pound lean pork
1 lg Onion, stuck with 3 whole
Cloves
3 qt Water
1 1/2 t Salt
1 T Pepper
1 t Ground sage
3 c Cormeal
All-purpose flour, for
Dredging sliced scrapple
Butter, back fat or
Vegetable oil for frying

Place pigs knuckles in a large pot; add pork, onion, and water. Cook
slowly, covered, for 2 1/2 hours; drain, reserve broth.
Chill meat and remove fat; separate meat fron bones. Chop meat.
Place meat in a kettle with 2 qts of the reserved broth. Add salt, pepper
and sage; bring to a boil combine cormeal with remaining 1 qt of reserved
broth and stir into boiling mixture. Cook over medium heat until
thickened, stiirring constantly. Cover and cook over very low heat; stir
again after 20 minutes.
Pour into 2 (9-by-5-by-3-inch) loaf pans. Cool and chill overnight. Cut
into slices, coat with flour and brown in butter or bacon fat. Serve hot
with fruit for a hearty breakfast.
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