Charcuterie Must haves.

For starters: A quality, meaning NOT a "household" model, meat griinder with a large selection of face plates. A stand-alone sausage stuffer with several different sized stuffing tubes, a big sheet pan that you can put water or oil in so your sausage slides easily on it and doesn't stick/tear.

Unfortunately the equipment isn't cheap. If you try to get off buying cheap equipment you'll probably hate charcuterie within a short period of time. Let me do some looking around and see what's new in the affordable department.

Here are some pictures of a meat grinder I put together on the cheap. It won't do for commercial, but it's fine for home use.

Matt_A said:

Unfortunately the equipment isn't cheap. If you try to get off buying cheap equipment you'll probably hate charcuterie within a short period of time.

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Exactly.

While I haven't tried my hand with homemade sausages yet, I do grind my own hamburger from time to time as well as the trimmings from spare ribs. I use a kitchen aid with the grinder attachment, but before that I bought an ultra cheap grinder from Harbor Freight for $50. Well, you know that old saying “you get what you pay for”? It turns out to be 100% true which is why I took that piece of junk back the next day.

Just remember, when it comes to grinding meat or stuffing sausages, you want to work super fast so the fat won't melt and gum up the grinder. If I was serious about sausage making and had the money (and hopefully some day I will), I'd pick up a 15 pound stuffer and this grinder. Good luck which ever way you go bro.

Cabela's #42 meat grinder - YouTube

The most important thing about sausage making is not letting the heat build up. If you're not actively doing something with the meat it should be in an ice bath. Keep everything sharp to reduce friction.

I practice the art and I dont have any equipment other then a food processor, a sausage stuffing funnel and some mortons tender quick.

Oh yeah and I use an old electric fan too.

I bought a "Kitchener" brand meat grinder from Northern Tool for about $119 and I'm totally happy with it. I can't imagine that spending more money on a meat grinder would make me happier.

Cabin Fever said:

Cabela's #42 meat grinder - YouTube

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22 lbs./minute $769.99 :thumb:

Good lord man! how much sausage are you guys makin??

Capozzoli said:

Good lord man! how much sausage are you guys makin??

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never.enough.sausage :hungry::hungry::hungry:

I totally agree with the other folks. The best grinder you can get, a good stuffer(I have a five lb and typically grind 25 lb or more batches, wish I had a larger capacity), a large mixing vessel, and scales(one for grams for the spices and cure, and one larger for the meats), brushes to clean the stuffing horns, either "c" clips(hog rings) and pliers or a tape sealer for your bulk chubs, vacuum packager ain't bad, if not, freezer paper, butcher's twine, and one knife per sized plate, the knife "marrys" to the particular plate, injection apparatuses, hangers for sausages and bacon. That's all I can think of right now, I'm drinking wine and smoking ribs. I do know that $$$$$ come into play, it sure would be nice if we could have it all, but...
Here's a place that I deal with:
http://www.alliedkenco.com/index.aspx

There are several more, The Sausage maker, Butcher Packer to name a couple.
Please keep us posted, I love meat processing:-D

Matt_A said:

never.enough.sausage :hungry::hungry::hungry:

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You sound just like my wife.

Thankfully she WASNT that way before we married. :roll:

I guess you need all that stuff if you make lots of sausage. I every now and then spend a Sunday afternoon stuffing some casings with my thumbs. We make klobasa mostly. Haven't tried my hand at soprasatta salami and the like, but it is on my list. I consider that advanced. When you are getting into fermenting the meat then it gets a bit complicated, I think? I just freeze some pre-cubed meat then pulse it in the food processor till I reach a good consistency. If I want meat dough for say bratworst I run the food processor and throw in some ice.

It might be important to note that sausage making is only one small part of charcuterrie. One might want to start with turning a pork loin into Canadian bacon, OR make some Irish back bacon. Corned beef etc.

Then graduate onto cured sausages and cold smoking.

That book is a good one though, that is where I learned.

The Foxfire books have some good info to on curing and preserving meats and building a smokehouse.

Have you seen cowgirls smoke house? Search for her blog.

Mikey,

I'd read that book first before you buy anything. I have it, and it's awesome - I couldn't put it down for three hours once I got home with it! The author states that most of the recipes they present in the book were prepared with a kitchenaid mixer grinder attachment, so the average home cook could try things out; that's the route I also took so that I could follow the way they did it in the book.
I think it's a real eye opener too. I make fresh sausage, haven't stuffed any yet, but the breakfast patties I've done up were amazing. Because I cooked them right away, I didn't use any of of the pink salts, but they explain the whole purpose behind them, so I don't feel it's wrong to use them when the time comes, since it's far less than commercial quantities.

I guess it depends on how fast and how far you are jumping into this hobby. Doing dry cured things like salami, coppa, prosciutto takes a lot more skill than making bacon and fresh sausages.

First I would recommend some good reading materials which have proven recipes. The Ruhlman book is excellent, and I cut my teeth on the Rytek Kutas book "Great sausage recipes and meat curing". The binding is not that great, but the content is excellent.

Next, you need a few food safety items, good thermometers, some meat tubs, meat buckets, gloves and the like. Tools like gloves, cutting boards, sharp knives you most likely have.

A grinder and stuffer are needed. I put more money in a good quality stuffer, mine is 25 years old and still works as good as the day I bought it.





My grinder is a Kitchen Aid mixer attachment. I can grind meat at the rate of 1 pound per minute all day long if it is cubed and iced down first. You don't need a dedicated fridge, but will need the ability to utilize space in your beer fridge. Tubs and buckets take up a lot of room and when you equalize bacon, or dry sausage and things, you need plenty of room. It also has to be kept cold, so keep opening down to a minimum.

You will need top quality spices, curing salts and must select the freshest meats you can. Don't scrimp on any of these things. Also get good quality casings and learn how to clean them, also use the right casing for the job, they come in several sizes, and you can get sheep or hog casing. I don't care for the artificial ones.

Then you need wrapping material or equipment. I have a vacuum sealer and also buy good quality plastic wrap and freezer paper. I also make my own labels. You will usually be giving stuff away and the nicer the wrap job, the better.


Lastly, and most importantly you will need a journal for keeping all your notes. Your basic brining may only take a day or two, curing might be a week or 10 days and your hard cured stuff will take several weeks or months. A journal will insure that you can repeat a process, or know what you want to change.

I love that Charcuterie book - I've made lots of the sausage recipes in there and they've all been good. I'm curing maple bacon as we speak. The Rytek Kutas book is great too - dude knows his stuff(ing)!

As mentioned, a dedicated stuffer is a great idea - the Kitchenaid attachment is ok for grinding (for me anyway - I only do 5# batches) but the stuffer for the KA totally blows. I normally don't buy stuff that only suits one purpose in a kitchen, but I did get one of those little sausage pricker thingees. I know toothpicks, knife tips, whatever else works fine, but I kept tearing the casings with those. It's also a good thing to measure your links with too.

I haven't bought commercially made sausage since I started making my own a couple years ago. You'll be amazed at how great even the simplest recipes are. And, as mentioned before, keep everything cold cold cold.