[Sca-cooks] Re: Sausage report

[Louise Smithson]

Maggie MacD. gave us a review of her sausage making experiments and

said

> Lesson five: Someone will have to give me the solution to this one
later.
> When I went to parboil both the bratwurst and the andouille, they
> untwisted.  I now have whole sausages that are as long as 20 inches.

When I was growing up my Father was a butcher, one of our "treats" was
being allowed to help with sausage making and forming the links.  This
is kind of harder to describe than show, but I am going to give it a
shot.

 When you start leave a tag of about 1" of empty skin
 Do not fill the casings completely use about 90% or so of the space.
Now for the tricky explanation.
1) Measure of a length of sausage about 2 x what you want the final
link length to be.
2) With your thumb and forefinger squish the filled sausage to the
empty end.  Turn 180 degrees three times (twist them together 3 x) You
should now have a donut with the remainder of the sausage hanging below
it.
3) OK, now draw a length of sausage through the donut equal to 3x your
link length.  With the thumb and forefinger squish the top of the donut
to the point on the long string that is 3x your length.  This creates a
spot that no longer has sausage meat in it.  Bring the long length up so
that it is 2 x a link length at this point.  Twist 3 times.
4) What you now have is a link of 3 sausages joined together with a
donut on top and the remaining length of sausage hanging below.
5) Repeat from step 3 on until you have no sausage left.  Twist three
times at the end to form the last sausage.  We just used to squeeze out
any remaining sausage meat after making the last link and either put it
in the next batch or fry it and eat it.

Hope this makes sense.

Helewyse