So My parents and I finally got around to making sausage. Monday morning we picked up 3 cases of pork butts ranging from 63lbs to 68lbs for an approximate total of 195 lbs of pork.
The first task was to de-bone the pork into workable meat. My pop cuts it away and hands it off to my mother and I.
We take the slab of meat and have to produce strips of meat approximately 1.5 inch cube thick by however long the slab of meat is. This is so that we can feed it into our mini Hobart. It's important here to take off as much as the nerve and gristle as possible. We also carve out excessive fat. It takes a bit of experience to get an eye for how much fat to leave on the meat for flavor's sake.
Mom carving off some nerve.
Bucket full of pork strips.
After the first case, the knives were dulling. Especially the ones my pop used to de-bone. I had to pull out the king waterstones for some quick work.
It took my parents about 3 hours to realize I was taking way to many pics. I told them I was gonna put them on the net so Rachel Ray could see how to make real sausage. They love watching her show and both got a chuckle out of that. It's nice to take a time out and laugh with your parents when your older. For some reason it means more to you then when your young.
About one Hundred pounds and 4 to 5 hours in.
To the right you can almost see the bucket of nerve and fat trimmings as well as stacks of bones. Nothing is discarded, there is a use for everything. The bones are used for flavoring sauce, as well as boiling for pulled pork salad. (what we had for dinner)
After getting everything Sharp I set up the Hobart grinder and began grinding up those strips of pork. As a kid I remember having to cut the pork into half inch cubes and squeezing them into softball sized balls to shove into the manual crank meat grinder. The kids would take turns turning the crank and making suasage was a family task, and I mean extended family not just those living in the house. You have to love modern technology. This is nice and easy, and thats probably why I make it my job.
It took my Mom about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on the camera and snap this pick. I love her to death, but a techie she is not.
And what 50lbs of ground pork looks like.
160 lbs separated so we can do some different seasoning. Pop likes his sweet, senza forte. I like mine un poco forte, on the hotter side of mild. Mom likes hers so that no one can eat it for fear of spontaneous combustion better known as "bella madonna com e forte".
Now on to Chicola! This is one of my favorite things. Most people who have no experience with it think it's disgusting or that I'm crazy. The just don't know better.
First you take all the fat and nerves that were trimmed off the pork.
Toss them into a pot. Add some salt and allow them to boil in their own melted fat which turns to oil. When I was younger, we would allow the oil to cool and save it as Lard. It is amazing that I can make my own Twinkie filling with this and some sugar. Over an hour later they look like this.
Now you have to compress them so that you can drain as much of the lard/oil out of them as possible. It looks easy but it's not, and these suckers are HOT! This isn't me smiling or even trying to hold in a trip to the toilet. This is me almost bursting the veins in my head from trying to squeeze the chicola. Please excuse the apron, I'm 6'4" 325lbs, the apron is my mom's whose 4'11" in 6 inch high heals.
We finished off the night at this point. here are the compressed chicola. We toss them in some dough and bake bread. Imagine a hearty bread with gristle in it and that's chicola bread. It will take decades off your life but it tastes so good.
The next day we fried up some of the sausage to make sure the flavoring was right. Then we moved on to sheep.
Sheep casings.
With the exception of flavoring, this next part is the only part that requires any sort of skill. You have to fill a casing without making it burst yet making sure to fill it enough that the sausage wont end up hollow after drying.
First one done! these will be about 4 to 5 feet long.
22 Hot ones for Mom. I told her to give these to family members. I figured if they don't like it because its so damned hot, they wont ask me for mine thinking its the same!
My table complete. One years worth of old school home made goodness. I should have put a bottle of lipitor in the picture too.
And finally Pop's.
This was the end of the second day. About 3 hours in total on this day. The links have to sit over night so that they can set a bit. If not they will break when being hung to dry. Everything to this point was in the garage/kitchen. The kitchen in the house is only used to eat in, everything else in it is a museum and all the cooking is done out side. The next day we move on to the store room in the basement where all the wine is sitting ready to be drank. Theres also some 300 jars of canned tomato's we made over the summer, some capacolo and prescuito and an entire wheel of Sharp provolone just drying out.
This is the most important part. Humidity needs to be around 50% and the temperature should be around 40-55 so that it doesn't spoil nor freeze.
Outside looking in
Under looking up
We put linen on the shelves and over the floor. So far we have been lucky and no links broke and fell to the floor. After 3 or 4 days there is no fear in that happening as the meat starts to set and dry. It will take about 3 weeks untill we can cut the dried suasage into 6 inch lengths and put it in gallon jars then fill the jars with oil. We also put some in vacuum bags but the oil or lard is more traditional.
Anyway, the post is long but hopefully some of you got a kick out of it.
The first task was to de-bone the pork into workable meat. My pop cuts it away and hands it off to my mother and I.
We take the slab of meat and have to produce strips of meat approximately 1.5 inch cube thick by however long the slab of meat is. This is so that we can feed it into our mini Hobart. It's important here to take off as much as the nerve and gristle as possible. We also carve out excessive fat. It takes a bit of experience to get an eye for how much fat to leave on the meat for flavor's sake.
Mom carving off some nerve.
Bucket full of pork strips.
After the first case, the knives were dulling. Especially the ones my pop used to de-bone. I had to pull out the king waterstones for some quick work.
It took my parents about 3 hours to realize I was taking way to many pics. I told them I was gonna put them on the net so Rachel Ray could see how to make real sausage. They love watching her show and both got a chuckle out of that. It's nice to take a time out and laugh with your parents when your older. For some reason it means more to you then when your young.
About one Hundred pounds and 4 to 5 hours in.
To the right you can almost see the bucket of nerve and fat trimmings as well as stacks of bones. Nothing is discarded, there is a use for everything. The bones are used for flavoring sauce, as well as boiling for pulled pork salad. (what we had for dinner)
After getting everything Sharp I set up the Hobart grinder and began grinding up those strips of pork. As a kid I remember having to cut the pork into half inch cubes and squeezing them into softball sized balls to shove into the manual crank meat grinder. The kids would take turns turning the crank and making suasage was a family task, and I mean extended family not just those living in the house. You have to love modern technology. This is nice and easy, and thats probably why I make it my job.
It took my Mom about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on the camera and snap this pick. I love her to death, but a techie she is not.
And what 50lbs of ground pork looks like.
160 lbs separated so we can do some different seasoning. Pop likes his sweet, senza forte. I like mine un poco forte, on the hotter side of mild. Mom likes hers so that no one can eat it for fear of spontaneous combustion better known as "bella madonna com e forte".
Now on to Chicola! This is one of my favorite things. Most people who have no experience with it think it's disgusting or that I'm crazy. The just don't know better.
First you take all the fat and nerves that were trimmed off the pork.
Toss them into a pot. Add some salt and allow them to boil in their own melted fat which turns to oil. When I was younger, we would allow the oil to cool and save it as Lard. It is amazing that I can make my own Twinkie filling with this and some sugar. Over an hour later they look like this.
Now you have to compress them so that you can drain as much of the lard/oil out of them as possible. It looks easy but it's not, and these suckers are HOT! This isn't me smiling or even trying to hold in a trip to the toilet. This is me almost bursting the veins in my head from trying to squeeze the chicola. Please excuse the apron, I'm 6'4" 325lbs, the apron is my mom's whose 4'11" in 6 inch high heals.
We finished off the night at this point. here are the compressed chicola. We toss them in some dough and bake bread. Imagine a hearty bread with gristle in it and that's chicola bread. It will take decades off your life but it tastes so good.
The next day we fried up some of the sausage to make sure the flavoring was right. Then we moved on to sheep.
Sheep casings.
With the exception of flavoring, this next part is the only part that requires any sort of skill. You have to fill a casing without making it burst yet making sure to fill it enough that the sausage wont end up hollow after drying.
First one done! these will be about 4 to 5 feet long.
22 Hot ones for Mom. I told her to give these to family members. I figured if they don't like it because its so damned hot, they wont ask me for mine thinking its the same!
My table complete. One years worth of old school home made goodness. I should have put a bottle of lipitor in the picture too.
And finally Pop's.
This was the end of the second day. About 3 hours in total on this day. The links have to sit over night so that they can set a bit. If not they will break when being hung to dry. Everything to this point was in the garage/kitchen. The kitchen in the house is only used to eat in, everything else in it is a museum and all the cooking is done out side. The next day we move on to the store room in the basement where all the wine is sitting ready to be drank. Theres also some 300 jars of canned tomato's we made over the summer, some capacolo and prescuito and an entire wheel of Sharp provolone just drying out.
This is the most important part. Humidity needs to be around 50% and the temperature should be around 40-55 so that it doesn't spoil nor freeze.
Outside looking in
Under looking up
We put linen on the shelves and over the floor. So far we have been lucky and no links broke and fell to the floor. After 3 or 4 days there is no fear in that happening as the meat starts to set and dry. It will take about 3 weeks untill we can cut the dried suasage into 6 inch lengths and put it in gallon jars then fill the jars with oil. We also put some in vacuum bags but the oil or lard is more traditional.
Anyway, the post is long but hopefully some of you got a kick out of it.
Last edited:
) !
