EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

 After killing the hog last weekend plus the hog meat we had in the freezer we decided to make some link sausage and smoke it. We planned to do it Saturday so  we all got together over at my parents house and made it a family affair .  We took the wild pork from the freezer and deboned it and cut it into cubes about 1 inch square .  After getting it all deboned and putting the proper amount of fat mixture with the lean meat we then added the seasoning and mixed with the meat. Then we took " Casing " which is the small intestines of a pig put it on the feeder tube and started grinding and stuffing the caseing.  We lit the smoker and had the fire ready for when the sausage came off the grinder.  After we got the first batch ready we put it on the smoker and regulated the heat at 175 degrees and let each batch smoke for 6 hours.  My Dad Brother and I stayed up all night long tending the fire to keep wood on it and keep the temp. right. We had 5 batches so we finally took the last batch off at 1 pm sunday . We make sausage a couple of times a year but usually just pattie sausage. We havent made any smoked link sausage in the last few years so i thought i would document the process.  After taking the first batch off my Mother made some homade cat head biscuits.  My Father also raises Honey Bees and harvest the honey from them every spring. So we ate Wild Pork Homade Sausage, Home Grown Honey and Fresh Homade from scratch Biscuits.  It just dont get any better than that. Heres a few pictures .

From Start to finish
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Putting it on the smoker
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Even My Grand son was helping
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Looks good all you need to finish it is a picture of a terd ;D ;D

I'm hungrey know :'(

thats funny. looks good

bwa ha ha!!!! ;D ;D that's funny jml...

always taste better when you do it yourself... well, sometimes..
looks good though. good job ladogos.

one thing you left out on the last pic... you left out a quart mason jar filled to the rim with milk!!!

Nice job , good pics looks very professional

Looks good.

LOOKS LIKE A FUN TIME BET IT TASTES GOOD

hey , thats how my family has always made sausage , ( my granded was from florida ) except i hang it in the smoke house to smoke . then we leave it hangin till we eat it . by spring time its tasting pretty strong but its not ruint , i've never had any ruin . do you freeze yours ? does it keep good in the freezer ?

   enjoyed the pics

                       , john

Thanks a lot Ladogos! Im hungry now and dont have any sausage made yet!! >:(

Ill be back after my ham sandwich.

Good post!

Nice pics

Are you smoking at 170 and if so for how long.  Hope I'm not asking for the secret family recipe here.  If so just PM me the answer.

Kelvin

Do you trim the wild hog fat off? We make several hundred or a thousand pounds of sausage every year and it has always seemed silly to me that we trim off all of the wild fat only to replace it with 2, 3 or even 4 times as much domestic fat.

I am due to make a batch soon and this time I plan to not trim the wild fat. I will add fat as needed, I am just not going to trim off what is already there. I guess that I should make it a small batch just in case :)

Steve

what's "cat head" bisuits??  they sure look tastey.   

That is really a special set up. Family tradittion and good fun and use of our hobby. Very Nice!

Looks good!

Lookin Good marv..

thats some good family fun.

  i would also like to know how long you leave it in the smoker, or is it just a till you like it kinda deal.

John,   Yes we put it in the freezer. It will last if you have a smoke house to leave it hanging in so that nothing can get to it. But when it starts warming up it will go bad. It will keep in the freezer for about 2 years without any difference in the taste .

Kelvin,  Not to many questions at all. I enjoy shareing my experiances so others that don't have the means or facilities my have a chance to enjoy and learn or try it them selves.  We kept the temp. at between 165 and 180 for 6 hours.  You can smoke it up to 8 hours before it starts to try and dry out and shrink or over cook.  Any temp over 185 is cooking and not smoking .  ;D

Monteria,   No we do not trim the fat off.  No reason to.  If it is a far SOW and the fat is pretty and white it is as good as any you would buy.  If the fat has a yellow tent to it then that means the hog is loosing weight and the fat " May " not be as good.  If I were you i would keep all the fat on .   We usually try and use a 25 or 30 percent fat to lean ratio .

Craig,  6 - 8 hours at 165 -180 degrees

Oh one more thing. Even the smoker was homemade by my dad . 


Thanks for all the comments .  I hope that this passes down some of the family traditons to my kids and grand kids. 

I'm sure it will.
Another quick question, it looks like you just piled it in the smoker.
Do you rearrange it throughtout the process?
I just wonder because with it piled in there I have had it come out all white striped and ugly where it was touching the other pieces.
Seemed to me like the smoke only got to the exposed areas and not where they were touching.

My family does that every year also.  But we mix our deer and hog meat together.  60% deer 40% hog. I will take pics when we do ours

Yes we had to rearrang it about every 1 hour or so.  The first batch we had a little bit to much on there and that is what we had to do. The rest of it we only put as much as we could without stacking to much of it on each other .   It would be easier if we had a way to hang it so you don't have to pile it up on each other.  We are talking about building a walk in type smoke house like my dads parents had when he was a kid,  it would make it a LOT easier.

Looks good! Great now I'm craving all that! lol

alright boar ninja, i guess it is time to fire up the bradley and have some adult beverages again.

Just homemade biscuits but they're as big as a Ol' Tomcat's head ;) ;) ;D ;D ;D

hahah. gotcha.  never heard that but then again my parents are from California. :-X

 Yep thats it .  Man and they are  GOOD . . .    NOBODY but NOBODY makes em as good as my mother ! ! !

Now you're gonna have to prove that.  I'll pm you my address....send me some of what you had on that plate. ;D

This is what I was going to ask also don't do much smoking wanted to though. and the patties you do the same way?

if he's talking about pan sausage (like jimmy dean in a tube)  then you don't smoke it.  at least we don't. 

Thanks for the pics, that was great. It is always great seeing the whole family getting involved. Our family has made homemade sausage all my life. One thing we do differently is cut the sausage (every 18-20 inches), then twist it in the middle and hang it over a broom stick and then  put it in a smoke house. I like the way that ya'll did this by just laying it all in the smoker.

Do ya'll put a little twist in the link when it is coming out of the stuffer or do you wait until you finish the whole gut lenght and then put the twist for each link.

Thanks for the post!

we wait untill we get the whole lenghth stuffed , then link it . i also put some in cloth bags to smoke sometimes . ( patties )

We twisted it as it came off the grinder.  You make one link twist it clock wise and then the next link twist it counter clock wise then the next one clock wise.   .    On the pattie sausage all we do is mix the seasoning, grind it and then just bag it like hamberger meat.  No smokeing.