Update on the pig processing

Before I came back to the UK we make 4kg of sausages so Doug had plenty to eat while I was away. We used the recipe we perfected recently (although I minced the meat finer on the 6mm rather than 8mm plate). We have something like 15kg more in the freezer to do when this lot run out. It wasn't too bad with a hand driven mincer and stuffer although it would be better if we had something more solid to attache it too. A number of people have looked at us in astonishment when we say we are going to use a hand mincer. Making all the sausages at once would have been a bit much though.

Mincer with stuffer attachement

Ironically this picture shows synthetic skins despite the enormous effort we made to make skins from the pigs intestines because we forgot to wash the salt off ours. We are also a bit concerned whether they are a bit more pink than they are meant to be and we didn't want to poison ourselves. Pretty much everyone I have spoken to who has read the blog is ASTONISHED that we went to the effort and dicomfort of trying to make our own. Personally I am glad we gave it a go and we will know for next time...

This is the 4kg of meat with the rusk and seasoning all ready to start stuffing. I think we used slightly too much fat in the mixture so for the next lot we will try to make it just a tiny bit more meaty. Not sure though. Just a thought

And here are the finished sausages. When you see butchers linking them they do it at lightening speed. We were MUCH slower at it. It is not difficult to do but a bit fiddly, I expect after the 8,000th one you really get the hang of it though.

I was very excited that we had to make the effort to find the blender so we could make breadcrumbs for various of our pig recipes and for grinding some of the spices. Perhaps you know you need to get out more when finding a blender is SO exciting.

Before I left for the UK the pigs were safely processed and packed away in the freezer or salt. We have some more to do, such as getting the hams out of the salt and hanging them to dry (this will be in a few weeks). We have another back leg in the freezer awaiting inspiration, the heads need something doing with and we have a belly waiting in the freezer to be made in to streaky bacon plus a load of meat to make in to saussison/chorizo and many more sausages.