I cracked this thread open today and read through my posts from three years ago. It's funny to read about the challenges I had; I've "cracked the code" on most of them in the time since then, but one thing hasn't changed: Making sausage is a shit-ton of work!
The sausages posted earlier in this thread, bratwurst-sized links, all use hog casings that are roughly 32mm in diameter. I recently decided to make a different sausage (more on that later) that requires smaller casings, so I bought some 20-22m sheep casings. And since I had some left over from that project, I thought I'd try making linked breakfast sausage. I've made breakfast sausage before, but I've always made it as bulk or patties, since I figured it wasn't worth the hassle of making all those little tiny links.
And in hindsight, I was right . . . lmao.
I went to Chef'Store yesterday, and was thankfully
able to buy a single pork butt, boneless, for $1.79/lb. Good deal. I ground it up, used
this maple seasoning, and then after considerable effort I got them all cased up and into the fridge to dry a bit:
Side note #1: That maple seasoning is good, I've used it before. I won't buy any more of it since it has more sugar than I want in my current diet, but it does taste good.
Side note #2: In my first post in this thread, I talked about struggling with getting the casings to slip over the stuffer horn. I had that same problem this time, in a big way, but finally (re)learned the lesson and got it straightened out. That lesson is, as taught by 2 Guys And A Cooler, add some baking soda (1 tsp per quart) to your casing soaking water. The baking soda makes the casings slippery, and then slide much more easily.
After getting all 10 pounds stuffed, linked and dried, I vacuum-sealed them into pouches with 10 each:
And then cooked them all at 150 degrees in the sous vide:
And then put them all in the freezer. My theory (as yet untested) is that I'll be able to pull a package from the freezer, and put the frozen links into the air fryer for maybe five minutes, just enough to heat them through and brown them a little.
I'm sure these will be good . . . but I worked on this all damned day. It's rewarding at the end, but it's a lot of effort!