Local Food Heroes Blog

Wednesday, 28 11 07 - 17:39

Sausage and Curing Equipment and Supplies

A certain amount of equipment is needed to make sausage and to cure safely:

Mincers
These can be either hand or electric mincers. Many people already own a food processor, or mixer, with a mincing attachment such as the Kenwood Chef. These are fine for small scale sausage making. Larger more robust machines are available from the suppliers listed below.
Stuffers
You can stuff sausage skins (casings) by hand with a funnel, but I wouldn't fancy it myself! It's better to use either an adapter for your mincer or a special sausage stuffer. Attachments for standard sized mincers are available from Sausagemaking.org and attachments are available for the Kenwood Chef, either from ebay, or complete with the mincer for newer models. Check with your Kenwood stockist as the tubes do not fit some older machines. Personally, I find it hard to use the sausage stuffers on mincers, I know other people who use nothing else, so the choice is yours – certainly this is the cheaper option. I use a dedicated sausage stuffer, these are available from the suppliers listed below and start at about £70.

Scales
Accurate scales are useful for measuring small quantities of spices/herbs and are essential when dealing with curing agents such as saltpetre. Scales, accurate to a tenth of a gram, or even one hundredth, are available quite cheaply online. There's usually some on ebay.

Sausage Skins (Casings)
These are generally sold by the hank, about 100 yards, or half-hank. They come preserved in salt. I buy mine 'pre-spooled' – that is to say they come on rods ready for soaking and threading onto your sausage stuffer rather than in a big bundle. Casings can be natural or artificial. I use natural hogs' (pigs') and sheeps' casings which I soak in warm water for at least a couple of hours, often overnight, before use. Artificial casings generally don't need soaking. I get my pre-spooled casings from Weschenfelders. Unspooled casings work out cheaper and can be bought from Sausagemaking.org. Larger quantities are available from Scobies.

Curing Supplies
The chemicals need for curing are available from the suppliers below. The main ones are:

Saltpetre

This is Potassium Nitrate and was used, and still can be used, in traditional curing. It is mainly used, by modern curers, in air dried products as it is active over a long period and provides protection for long-term curing.

Cure 1, Prague Powder

This is Sodium Nitrite and is commonly used nowadays for curing. It acts to protect the meat very quickly unlike Saltpetre which has to convert from a Nitrate salt to a Nitrite, by reacting with bacteria in the meat, before it starts it's job. Sodium Nitrite has to be mixed with salt, by law, to reduce the danger from accidentally swallowing it. It is often coloured pink so that it is not mistaken for anything else. Normally, cure 1 has 6.25% Nitrite. The cure from Sausagemaking.org is 5.88%. This has to be taken into account when calculating levels in a cure mix. The amount of Nitrite put into a product should, almost certainly, be below 200 parts per million (PPM). The British and EU rules on curing levels lack detail, many home-curers follow the USA rules, which are far more detailed than the EU and British, and generally contain accurate information on the levels of cure that must be used.

Cure 2, Prague Powder II

This is a cure containing both Sodium Nitrite and Sodium Nitrate it is used in long term curing of air dried products.

Sodium ascorbate or sodium erythorbate (isoascorbate)
These are vitamin C salts that are used in small quantities, about 550 parts per million, to stop nasty cancerous 'thingies' forming in cured meat, such as bacon that is fried at a high temperature. They are not required in Britain but their use is advised by many authorities. They are compulsory in bacon in the USA. I buy this online, generally from ebay.

Suppliers
Sausagemaking.org – Supplier of sausage making and curing equipment and sundries in smaller quantities for the hobbyist.
Weschenfender.co.uk – Supplier of sausage making and curing equipment in particular casings that are pre-spooled.
Scobies.com – Butchers' suppliers selling in larger quantities.
Northerntooluk.com – Equipment.

Further information and advice
There is no better place for further information on all aspects of curing and sausage making than the forums at sausagemaking.org.

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