Sausage Fest 2011

Making sausages is as simple as grind, mix, and stuff. Though, when you're making 20+ pounds of sausage it still takes a while...





Good news is that the results can be awesome!

Firstly, I have to acknowledge an amazing website we used for all the recipes. http://lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage%20recipes.htm This guy has some great recipes available for personal use. We haven't tried any of the dried recipes. But we did make swedish potato sausage, hungarian garlic sausage, british bangers, and a mixture we made ourselves.

First though let's break down the process.

I found it easiest to freeze the pieces of pork shoulder just a bit so they're easier to cut. Then, we cut them into small squares and threw 'em into the grinder.





I'll admit, the grinder was kinda gross. Lots of squirting and sputtering sounds as fat and meat is made into delicious sausage...





Andrea threw around a lot of meat science and I'll admit most if it went over my head. But one thing I did catch was that the mixing is really important. After all the spices, potatoes, whatever have been mixed completely we kept going to really begin to break down the meat. Andrea said this helps the final product stick to itself and stay cohesive.





Everything up to now doesn't seem really complicated but it did take a while. Next up was the easiest part and the most fun...





Special thanks here have to go out to my parents-in-law for picking up the hog casings. We had to soak the casings over night to remove the salt. Then we simply placed them on the sausage press and we were off to the races...





It took a while to get the pressure right. And honestly it's easier if one person just takes over because it's too hard to coordinate the timing.

But thankfully all the work was totally worth it. And if anyone comes over they are welcome to which ever is your favorite... british bangers, hungarian garlic, swedish potato, or curried pork.





Just make sure Fiona watches you eat it...

Brewing Day

With my brother in town brewing day finally arrived! Our first attempt will be a dry Irish stout in the tradition of Murphy’s or Guinness. We used the extract kit from Northern Brewer here…

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/dry-irish-stout-extract-kit-2.html

Frankly the brewing day was uneventful. We added our grains to a mesh bag and steeped then as the water began to boil. The heavily roasted barley imparted flavor and color to the liquid.

Once we hit 170 F we removed the barley and brought the mixture to a boil. We then added the malt extract which is essentially syrup provided in a half gallon container.

Once the mixture was brought back to a boil we added the hops and boiled for 60 minutes as stated in the directions.

Finally, we plopped the wort outside to cool. It was about 20 F that night so it didn’t take long until it was cool enough to touch. We poured the wort into a carboy and added water to make a five gallon batch. We then took our original gravity readings.

After much debate and testing we determined our OG was 1.043. Lastly we placed a simple water valve to seal it and set the entire thing to begin fermentation. But not before we drank our unfermented wort. It was really sugary and despite Tim's acting will never get you drunk...

Fermentation was ridiculous! I woke up the next morning to an explosion of beer. Apparently the fermentation was so vigourous that the valve couldn’t keep up and my kraeusen had literally blown the bung off and created quite a mess!

So I had to attach my blow-off tube. The pressure in the carboy began to push out the extra foam slowly through the hose just as I expected. With the second end of the tube under a couple of inches of water I still had a good seal and there was no chance the kraeusen could clog my Thankfully I was fully prepared and knew how to handle the situation. Thanks Northern Brewer!

I would like to thank all those that made this brewing day possible. Especially Fiona who oversaw the entire operation...