Everything you need to know about making your own sausages

Whether you're having a backyard barbecue, out on a camping trip, or making a hearty breakfast, sausages are a staple for any meat-lover. Here's everything you need to know about sausages:

• In the 1870s, the sausage machine joined the basic gadgets in many kitchens.
• Scraps of meat and the less palatable parts of an animal could be ground up and converted into sausages encased in intestines.
• On the commercial front, mincers allowed butchers to offer all sorts of small goods as well as sausages — black pudding, pressed tongue and brawn.

Commercially produced sausages and brawn seldom match traditional recipes for flavour. The only special tool you will need to make your own is a meat mincer.

• Electric mincers do the job quickly and effortlessly but are expensive and, in general, designed for processing larger quantities of meat than you are likely to need.
• Food processors have limited value because they only produce a fine mince.
• An old-fashioned, hand-cranked meat mincer is best for home use because it cannot overheat the meat while it is being ground.
• Manual mincers usually come with several cutter plates for fine or coarse minces plus an attachment for stuffing sausages.
• The home sausage maker may use casings made from the small intestines of pigs and sheep which can generally be bought from a butcher who makes his own. Dry collagen casings, an alternative to natural gut, may also be available.
• These are a natural, restructured, edible casing obtained basically from the collagen layer of beef hides.
• Dry collagen casings are usually 22 to 24 millimetres (about an inch) in diameter; thicker ones of 36 millimetres (1 1/2 inch) are also available.
• They are stored dry and moistened only after filling to facilitate portioning sausages into the desired lengths.

Any kind of meat, poultry or game can be used for sausages, from the cheapest to the most expensive.

• The poorer the quality of meat, however, the less satisfactory the sausage is likely to be.
• It is important to balance fat and lean meat; aim for about one part fat to two parts lean.
• Too little fat results in hard, dry sausages.
• Too much fat results in greasy sausages that shrink when they are cooked.
• Try producing custom-made sausages with basic sausage premix available from butchers.
• This will contain meal (binder), salt preservative (500 milligrams per kilogram/two pounds of finished product) and spices.
• You can personalize the premix to suit your own taste.
• Add a little iced water or wine to give a softer consistency to the meat so that it will fill the casings easily.
• Try to eliminate air bubbles when stuffing the casings because they can become pockets of spoilage. Prick any existing bubbles in the finished sausage with a needle.

Homemade sausages should be eaten soon after they are made or stored in the freezer for no longer than a month.

• If you plan to preserve your sausages by freezing, there are certain seasonings to avoid:  garlic loses its flavour, sage produces an "off" flavour if it is kept frozen too long and salt may cause a rancid taste after about a month of freezing.

Now you're ready to make your own sausages. Be the hit of your next backyard barbecue, or just enjoy a sausage while watching the football game. It's a great food for any summer activity!

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