SC - Fats for sausages and other questions

[Sue Clemenger]

Okay....the majority of the recipes I've seen (with the exception of the
Lucanian recipe, which called for bacon, IIRC) for sausages just say
"add fat."  This holds true also for the little booklet of suggested
recipes that came with my food grinder/sausage maker.  What kind of fat
are we talking about? Commercially rendered lard or something? are there
alternatives? I need to make some quantity of a beef sausage w/out pork,
for people at my feast who won't be able to eat pork--any suggestions?
Secondly, what should I do if I have no access to any sort of smoking
facilities? (still investigating)  Could they be made ahead of time and
refrigerated or frozen, and then cooked "fresh" the day of the event? I
plan on boiling them for a bit, and then finishing them on a grill.
Also, if you're making link-style sausages (about the size, say of
bratwurst), how do you keep the blobs of sausage stuff separate from
each other inside the casing? Do you have to tie them off with string as
you're making them or something?
- --Maire