Sausages! The first fast food.

Snags ; Snorkers ; Bangers : Wurst : Saucisson : Call them what you will , It's meat in a tube!! It's great, you can really let yourself go with the sausage--Butt of many music hall jokes but a fine morsel treated right--Let's have a look at the methodology then---As with everything else--Scroupulous cleanliness is required , more so with this discipline cos a lot of nasty pathogens are lurking to take up residence in your First wurst!!!--Sanitizer soloution in a bowl to dip all your kit in as you go along then??  OK!

Cumberland Sausage was invented to please the German lead miners around Keswick at the end of the last century as the germans were not used to links which were popular in the reigion so they made the same recipe in a long wursty thing coiled up and the Germans were happy!!

So--7 lb of minced pork about 20/80  fat to lean is the norm , less fat if you want to live a bit longer but what is life without a juicy sausage??--- Your call!
Include a pound of smoked belly bacon for authenticity if you like  but watch the salt if you do!!
1 1/2 lb of rusk, now, you can buy rusk from sausage making kit suppliers look in the links column for a good supplier under "Make your own sausages" or use ground up crackers.
2lb of ICED water. Icing stops the dreaded 'Smearing' which happend if the fat content starts to emulsify with the meat and go pasty , we dont want that! Dont let your meat get too warm anyway, its not good practice.
To season , a teaspoon of WHITE pepper a tablespoon of thyme , a teaspoon of Prague powder  and a teaspoon of salt .
Prague powder is a mix of salt and saltpetre which is a preservative and will prevent the spores from vegetating--Highly desirable! (See "make your own sausages" link again)
Make your sausage meat and let it stand for about ten minutes to blend and draw then prepare to fill the casings. If you donrt have a filler use a big piping bag with a long nozzle on it.
Casings can be either natural or collagen I have used natural in this production run.

Sausage filler in stainless steel

The birth of the sausage!

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