Sausage Fest

During the week between Christmas and New Years I held the first annual(?) Clodhopper Sausage Fest. Our friend Matt, who helps me with chicken butchering was interested in getting a half of a pig from me and making a few different kinds of sausage out of the whole thing. I thought it sounded like an event, so we went whole hog. Also participating were Sap House Bill and Budgie Joe (who caught my daughters escaped parakeet with a butterfly net, while standing in the front end loader bucket 10 feet off the ground a few years back).




Sausage Fest is a two day event. The first day involves getting the hog to the point where it can hang overnight to cool. On the second day we started early boning the whole thing out, cutting the meat and some of the lard into small enough pieces to go through the old Hobart meat grinder I found in a barn I was tearing down. I don't know how old it is, but it is painted red with nice pin striping, so I am guessing probably 100 years. Might be the first electric one they made. It weighs 250lbs.

After we had all the meat and lard ground we weighed out the right amount of each, measured the spices, garlic, etc, and got it all mixed together. Then the sausage meat got pressed through the Enterprise lard press (same pin striping as the grinder) into sausage casings and twisted into links.
We ended up making Mexican Chorizo, Irish Breakfast, and Sweet Italian sausages. 115 lbs altogether.