Smells so good

[garys]

I made 25# of homemade sausage yesterday. This morning I'm smoking it. I love the smell of hickory smoke in the morning.

[Gene Howe]

That makes my mouth water.

[thunderbirdbat]

What kind of sausage is it? They looks almost too short to be a bratwust. I have never had much luck with casings so usually do a summer sausage.

[garys]

It is made up in natural pork casings. I break the long pieces into shorter individual sausages because we prefer it this way. You could call it whatever kind of sausage you want, I guess. The local butcher shops around here package up many kinds of their seasonings and sell them on the grocery store shelves here. Sausage making is very popular here around this time of year because of deer season. Lots of people shoot a deer and buy casings and seasonings from the store and make their own sausage. The commercial sausages are usually so fatty that they are difficult to digest. When you make your own, you control the fat content.

I don't hunt anymore, but I still want my sausage so I buy beef and pork and make it myself.

This particular one is probably most like a Polish sausage or Knockwurst.

[reible]

Back in the day we use to get "deer" sausage (in bulk not in casings) made into breakfast patty to have with fried eggs (sunny side up and runny yellows and fresh from my grandma chickens and toast made on the lid of the wood burning part of the stove). OH I just use to love that.

We knew enough people that if you got your deer or not you could still score the sausage.

The second favorite was a deer summer sausage. The hard part was waiting for it to dry out enough to be good. At the time aged swiss cheese, townhouse crackers and slices of the sausage, it just didn't get much better.

Not sure why but it was always deer sausage and not venison sausage. Maybe a local thing?

I haven't had any sausage like that since the early 1980's but I can still remember how good it was.

Ed