Our family has avoided processed meats for many years, (even organic) but we really did enjoy them, so I have worked hard to recreate some of our favorites. I have experimented with this recipe for several years, and I finally have it the point that we really love it, and now I can share it with you!

The biggest challenge to making summer sausage is going to be finding natural casings. I thought I had found some a few years ago, but when I received them, they smelled like a feedlot. Even though I had spent a lot on them, I had to throw them away. I decided that I needed to figure out how to harvest my own. After several failed attempts, I finally figured out how to process my own casings, and I try to save some intestines every time we butcher an animal. I will confess that it’s a lot of work and not much fun, but knowing what I’m getting, and the clean smell of them, makes it worth it. I have not researched sources for casing too much, so if you know of a good company to get casings from, please feel free to share, because I don’t think many people will want to harvest their own.

This summer sausage is not cured, so the texture is a little different than what you would get at the store, but the flavor is similar to what we used to buy. I use real salt and organic seasonings that I buy and some that I grow myself. This pairs well with Kailey’s aged cheese (learned from David Asher of Natural Cheesemaking) and our homemade sourdough crackers (recipe coming soon). It’s a great meal to bring when we are travelling or have a lot of work to do on the farm.

Homemade Summer Sausage

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Ingredients

  

• 10 pounds ground beef
• 7 tbsp real salt
• 6 1/2 tbsp mustard seed
• 1 tbsp black pepper
• 5 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp ground mustard
• 2 tbsp smoke paprika
• 4 tbsp onion powder

Instructions

 

• Mix up all seasonings. I then like to divide the 10 pounds of meat and seasoning in about half so they are easier to work with. I combine the meat and natural seasonings with my very clean hands. After this is well mixed, I will let it sit in the refrigerator for about 5 days. This is very important in developing the flavor. We then fill our casings (I have used beef, pork, and lamb) and then smoke this in our cold smoker for at least 4 hours when the weather is cooler. Then I insert a thermometer into the meat and bake these somewhere between 170 and 190 degrees until the thermometer reads 145 degrees. We like to vacuum seal them with each bag containing enough for 1 meal.

  Note: We have found it very helpful to soak the casings for at least 30 minutes in cold water before filling them.