Made the breakfast sausages last night. My stuffer tube is plastic, 11/16, and I had 20/22mm sheep casings. My daughters and I worked quite a while getting the casings on the stuffer horn. They were better at it because their fingers are smaller. After multiple blowouts and breakages, we switched to hog casings and were done in a few minutes. I am going to get a small, stainless steel tube before trying the sheep casings again. Looking forward to the kabaonsy using collagen casings - making that this weekend I hope.
Oh - recipewise, used a double recipe of CW's as written, except used fresh sage which resulted in a wonderful flavor. At first I thought they were a bit salty, as breakfast sausages often are for me. But upon eating them with eggs, they were just right. For the meat, I had several freezer baggies of pork butt trimmings left over from various projects, including some in cubes and some that had already been ground through a medium plate. Tossed them all together and ground through a small plate. I think the one I've got is 4mm. Added the ice water to the salt and spices and then mixed by hand, tag team style with my daughter that so while one of us was recovering from cold and aching hands, the other was kneeding the mince. The cold didn't bother her like it did me -- gotta get me some of those blue gloves! Mixing didn't take more than a few minutes -- we stopped when a ball of meat would stick to an overturned hand. The texture turned out very well in the end.
I sauteed them in a non-stick skillet on medium to low heat, put a cover on till they were cooked through, then took off the cover and browned them on either side as the moisture cooked off. Then fried the eggs in the grease. Mmmmph!
Today is the beginning of the new year on the Orthodox Christian church calendar (you Romanians and Russians will understand
) so we found ourselves celebrating the day with eggs, wonderful sausages and tea for breakfast. Since we always have this kind of sausage for breakfast on Christmas morning, it was especially festive and requests were formally made for a new tradition - i.e. no more store bought ever again. The Farmer John sausage company had a bad day.
Thanks CW for a great recipe, and everyone else for sharing your experience and advice along the way!
Jeff