Can you elaborate on your setup?

I tried making sausage and was just using the wife's mixer with the attachment. It was a bit of a disaster.

The Pilot said:

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Can you elaborate on your setup?

I tried making sausage and was just using the wife's mixer with the attachment. It was a bit of a disaster.

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Yeah, that's definitely not what you want to be making sausage with. If you're wanting to make sausage efficiently and where it doesn't suck, you want a dedicated grinder and stuffer. I've heard of people stuffing using their grinder but I can't imagine doing that, and being successful at it.

I have the LEM #12 BigBite Meat Grinder - 0.75 HP that I've put 1,000's of lbs through. Also have the LEM 10lb Duea Gear Stuffer that works really well, but starting really getting into sausage making and was making it by myself a lot so I got the LEM BigBite 30 lb motorized stuffer that I use all the time now.

I love making sausage. The most unique I made is a mix of chicken thighs and pork belly mixed in with Pepper Jack Cheese and hatch green chilis.

edit to say, your recipe looks great.

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Any other nut jobs out there that are hooked on making sausages?

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Oh God, it's like I'm looking in a mirror, haha. To answer your question, yes.

I got tired of just regular sausage and jalapeño cheese sausage at most bbq places. So I never ordered sausage anywhere we went. I hated wasting my bbq trim, especially after I got a lot more aggressive on stuff like briskets, so I eventually picked up a grinder and stuffer a couple of years ago to start making my own.

I follow guys like Bill Dumas (the "sausage sensei") on Instagram and love seeing the crazy creations they come up with. Learned a lot of how to make sausage from Bradley Robinson, the chuds bbq YouTube channel.

To date I've made: jalapeño cheese, hatch green chile & cheese, maple blueberry, chile relleno, pico de gallo, chicken bacon ranch, beef fajita, cheesy Italian, boudin, and apple cobbler. Probably a couple more that I can't remember at the moment too.

The chile relleno I made was basically just a jalapeño cheese but roasted poblano peppers instead of jalapeños, and the oxaca cheese instead of cheddar. Did add some cumin and Mexican oregano in too. Turned out decent but not as good as theirs.

To date, my best performing flavors with friends and family are the chicken bacon ranch (ground up chicken with cut up bacon, mozzarella cheese, and dry ranch seasoning as the main features) and my beef fajita ( all beef trim with three different colors of roasted bell peppers, cheese, cubed up skirt steak, and lots of seasonings like cumin, oregano, onion powder, and more in it).

Here's a batch I made over at a friend's house that was 60+ pounds and 5 different flavors back around Memorial Day.


Agreed that it's super rewarding when you come up with a tasty, and unique sausage.

agcrock2005 said:

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I got hooked on making homemade sausages a few years ago, and the TM Top 50 thread was talking about a Chle Relleno sausage last week that I've never had, so I decided this weekend that I would try to make a batch. Unfortunately I've never had the sausgae at Tejas, but this was the best sausage I've made so far. Very unique. Didn't get pics of every step, but here are some. Would be interested in seeing some of the pics of the real sausage at Tejas if anyone has ever been.

Cut up some Queso Oaxaca I got at the Mexican grocery store. Instead of using ancho powder I de-seeded and steeped a couple ancho chiles then put them in food processor with a little of the water and blended really well. I mixed that with heavy whipping cream for the liquid (most sausages are made with 10% liquid). Other spices are heavy cumin, , oregano, onion, garlic, paprika, cayenne, cure #1, and some others I'm forgetting. Wish I had been able to try the Tejas version to see if I'm close.



Mixing all the seasonings and liquid in with the meat until really tacky.

Added cubed oaxaca that I froze and the poblanos that I torched then covered with a bowl to steam, then peeled off skins and diced.

All mixed up and ready for stuffer.

32-35mm natural hog casings.

After resting for a while they're dried out and ready for the smoker.


Any other nut jobs out there that are hooked on making sausages? I've done birria taco sausages, chicken fajita, pineapple pork, ghost pepper cheese, boudin, and of course the more normal sausages. Lot of work but very rewarding when done and you're eating your own creations.

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Looks great. I hope the cheese doesn't melt out and create a mess.

It melted more than the normal cheeses I use, but still held together well. Next time I'll probably dehydrate the cheese some by putting in fridge for a day or so after cutting up. That kind of makes it "high temp" cheese by doing that.

OK, you understand what I'm going through then! It's a blast, other than the clean up!

Looks fantastic

Five batches on 5/26 is wild. Cool stuff!

That's a cool idea to keep track of what/when you make them. I have most of my recipes in a spreadsheet from the cooks, but not when they're made. That would be cool to look back on. I forget all the variations/types I've done.

agcrock2005 said:

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It melted more than the normal cheeses I use, but still held together well. Next time I'll probably dehydrate the cheese some by putting in fridge for a day or so after cutting up. That kind of makes it "high temp" cheese by doing that.

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I've thought of doing that for smaller batches. But even then, cutting up a pound of cheese into tiny cubes to dehydrate seems rather tedious.

superunknown said:

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Did you think you were just going to sneak "apple cobbler" in that list without anyone noticing?

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Ha, no sneaking here, i'll gladly own any of my creations. So this idea is mostly copycatted from Bill Dumas who I mentioned in my earlier post. One of his most famous links is a peach cobbler one that he's been making for years. I was dying to try it and finally got to at the 2023 Troubadour Fest. It was fantastic and I knew I'd have to try making some at home myself to have it more often. I like apple cobbler more than peach, so that's only difference.

As the name implies it has chunks of baked apple cobbler added to the ground up meat (just hand mixed, you dont run the cobbler through the grinder), along with plenty of sweet seasonings. I use: salt, pepper, brown and white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and touch of vanilla for the seasoning mixture. It really catches people off guard because its such a different flavor than what you normally expect when eating a link of sausage. And just plain looks cool when you see the cross section studded with pockets of cobbler.

Sadly I dont have a great picture of it, I took some of my first batch but it didnt turn out as good as I hoped and apparently I didnt get any pics of the second batch that was a lot better. You can google "Bill Dumas peach cobbler sausage" or look at his social media pages and see what I'm going for. It's still not on his level, but I'm improving with each batch.

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Five batches on 5/26 is wild. Cool stuff!

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You still in B/CS? Drop me your email if so and we can figure out a place to meet up and ill give you some links to try. My freezer is getting full from the latest run of 5 batches.

It sounds awesome. I'd try it for sure.

Wow! All that looks great!

No sir. I'm in Corpus Christi area now.

I'll take 20 lbs of the beef fajita please.

Damn this looks good!! I will take your scraps

I make bratwurst on occasion, and I have not found a recipe that is better than the Walton's Blue Ribbon Brat seasoning mix. Adding some hi-temp cheddar puts them over the top.

Tejas' sausage is so good I've contemplating quitting my day job to go work there and get the recipe.

Can you share the spice breakdown in yours? Looks great

Law361 said:

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Tejas' sausage is so good I've contemplating quitting my day job to go work there and get the recipe.

Can you share the spice breakdown in yours? Looks great

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I've got several tweaks I'm going to make, but here was attempt #1. Let me know if you make it and have any changes. Really wish I could get some from Tejas to see if I'm even close. It says pork butt twice because some of my sausages are mix of pork and beef and I copied the template over. This was all pork.

Dang, you go pretty heavy on the chile powder and cumin! Do those not overpower the taste?

I generally dont use a cure accelerator as I like to grind and case the day before and let the casings dry out in the fridge overnight while the meat is curing.

Here's what the recipe used when I made my Chile Relleno, I think I got some of it from smokin joes pit bbq youtube channel and adapted some of it from chuds bbq jalapeno cheese recipe.

For 8 pounds of meat:

65g salt
10g pink salt (cure #1)
17g black pepper
20g garlic powder
15g paprika
12g chile powder
20g cumin
12g onion powder
10g mexican oregano
115g milk powder
300g roasted poblano peppers
350g oaxaca cheese
275g water/beef stock

agcrock2005 said:

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Law361 said:

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Tejas' sausage is so good I've contemplating quitting my day job to go work there and get the recipe.

Can you share the spice breakdown in yours? Looks great

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I've got several tweaks I'm going to make, but here was attempt #1. Let me know if you make it and have any changes. Really wish I could get some from Tejas to see if I'm even close. It says pork butt twice because some of my sausages are mix of pork and beef and I copied the template over. This was all pork.

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One thing I would consider is upping the salt so that the salt plus curing salt equals around 2% (minimum) of the meat. It's more of a food safety thing, especially if you're wanting to cold smoke, or do an extended smoking time.

agfan2013 said:

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Dang, you go pretty heavy on the chile powder and cumin! Do those not overpower the taste?

I generally dont use a cure accelerator as I like to grind and case the day before and let the casings dry out in the fridge overnight while the meat is curing.

Here's what the recipe used when I made my Chile Relleno, I think I got some of it from smokin joes pit bbq youtube channel and adapted some of it from chuds bbq jalapeno cheese recipe.

For 8 pounds of meat:

65g salt
10g pink salt (cure #1)
17g black pepper
20g garlic powder
15g paprika
12g chile powder
20g cumin
12g onion powder
10g mexican oregano
115g milk powder
300g roasted poblano peppers
350g oaxaca cheese
275g water/beef stock

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I really liked it, but I do have a few modications for next batch.
- go to 35 g. Cumin

- go to 10 g chile powder since I'm steeping dried anchos and using that and the water as part of my 10% liquid. If I wasn't doing this part and just using another liquid then I'd probably back the chile powder down to 30 g for next batch. I really like chile and cumin though.

- I use the sodium erythorbate so I can "safely" do a test patty and taste before casing. 2 Guys & A Cooler did a video about dying from nitrites so I figured why the heck not just use it.

Again, this was my first attempt at making a sausage I'd never tasted or heard of before. I really wish I could try the Tejas version, or some other version so I could compare.

Good catch. I changed my other sausages to where the salt is 2% of weight and cure is .25% but I hadn't adjusted this one. Thanks.

Last year, we cut the meat, seasoned it, and put it in coolers and left it in the walk-in overnight. I can't really tell any difference in how the sausage turned out, but it sure saved us some time the next day.

Personally, I don't know why people don't season first and then grind. I get it if you're adding cheese, jalapenos, or other garnishes that you don't want to send through the grinder. It just seems like you get a better distribution of the seasoning by seasoning first, and then grinding.

I've done it both ways and haven't noticed much of a difference. If I add spices before grinding I'll save the liquid component until after so it won't get all gummy. The biggest thing I've learned that makes it much easier is to cut up the meat into about golf ball sized pieces and put in the freezer and get partially frozen. It flies through the grinder if it's at the right temp.

We have a Chop-Rite mounted on a pulley that is powered by an old motor from a refrigerator. That thing will go through 100# of meat in about five minutes. It's slower on the second grind.

That sounds awesome. I got a little crazy making sausages and selling to friends/family, and I hunt a ton as well, so I started watching some auctions and found this Hobart for $3,000. Wife about whipped my ass when this thing showed up at the house. Weighs almost a 1,000 lbs. I had no idea how big it was. I was laughing my ass off, but she was not! Hoping to load up 10-15 deer this season between my buddies and me and knock it all out in a day. I know a lot of people just think it's a ton of work, but I really love doing it. Throw in some beers, your buddies, and some tunes and it's hard to beat.

Looks great

You should do some Green Onion Hot Links. I make some last Fall using an old recipe from Grandfather's recipe notebook.