Beer Sausage Recipe
Make your own beer sausage at home with an original flavor recipe or choose from one of the unique flavor recipes.
And, before you commit to making any of these sausages, make sure you fry off a little of the stuffing to ensure that the seasoning and flavour balance is what you were after or it’s a lot of work to be disappointed in!
Photo by Patricia Niven
“The Beer Kitchen” is filled with a variety of recipes that can be cooked with or pair nicely with beer.
Courtesy of Hardie Grant Books
You’ll need a meat grinder and sausage stuffer for this. You can pick up hand-driven ones at a reasonable price online, or there are also lots of food processor attachments you can buy for various brands, too, which is what I’ve got for my Kitchen Aid. But do be very specific with your internet search for these things, won’t you?
Making sausages is fun, occasionally frustrating, but ultimately very satisfying and, in my experience, easier as a two-person job. In his very helpful book, Charcuterie, Michael Ruhlman explains the basics so very well and offers insightful tips throughout. Whilst I initially tried just replacing his suggestion of red wine in the basic sausage recipe with beer, I found the level of garlic a little unpalatable (not something I say very often) so, after a few experiments, I hit on the right beer/herb/spice combination that worked for me, and I suggest that’s what you do too, because what I like might not be what you like.
And, before you commit to making any of these sausages, make sure you fry off a little of the stuffing to ensure that the seasoning and flavour balance is what you were after or it’s a lot of work to be disappointed in!
Finally, unless you have a big family, you might want to consider portioning up the ground, seasoned meat into three servings (reducing your seasonings accordingly) and making three of the different recipes – because three metres of sausages is an awful lot to have of one flavour and the same old sausage all the time can get a little repetitive – but they do freeze perfectly well.
Ingredients:
- 3 metres (10 ft) natural sausage casings
- 2.25 kg (5 lb 8 oz) boneless fatty pork shoulder meat, cut into 3 cm (1-1/4 in) dice
- 300 ml (10 fl oz/1-1/4 cups) English-style barley wine
- 2 teaspoons dried thyme
- 2-1/2 tablespoons fine sea salt
- 1-1/2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs (this is optional, if you remove, reduce your liquid by 100 ml/3-1/2 fl oz/scant 1/2 cup)
Instructions:
- Soak the sausage casings in plenty of cold water overnight.
- Put the augur, blades and fine mincing sections of your grinder into the freezer for an hour before grinding the meat.
- Put the pork shoulder in a metal bowl and put it the freezer for 20 minutes before you grind the meat.
- At the same time, mix together your beer and thyme, in a suitably sized jug.
- Take another metal bowl and put it underneath where your grind will drop out. Put 100 ml (3-1/2 fl oz/scant 1/2 cup) of the beer in the bottom.
- Season the pork with the salt and pepper, then start grinding. When you’re onethird of the way through, add a third of your beer and thyme mixture.
- Repeat the process with the beer and thyme mixture until the meat is all ground.
- Fold and press the mix together, along with the breadcrumbs, if using, with a rubber spatula until the liquid is absorbed.
- Then fry a small patty in a pan to check for seasoning.
- Adjust if necessary, then put the mixture in the fridge for half an hour (you can leave it in the fridge for up to 24 hours at this stage).
- When you're ready to make the sausages, prepare the sausage stuffer (trying not to giggle like teenager at the words ‘sausage stuffer’) and rinse your soaked casings well.
- Push the casings onto the end of spout of the sausage stuffer and tie off securely at the end, putting a small pin prick in the end, just by the knot.
- Take your sausage mix out of the fridge and form into long cylinders, just a bit smaller than the hopper, and feed into the sausage stuffer.
- If you manage to make them into links, you’re a smarter person than I!
NOTE: For the beer sausage variations, see below. This is the basic method which applies to all of the variations.
Variations
All these variations start life with the same amount of pork, salt and pepper on the basic recipe above to enable you to make a few different types of sausage from the same base – and all of them follow the same method.
Rauch Chorizo-style Sausages
- Pork, salt and pepper (see recipe above for measurements)
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 100 ml (3-1/2 fl oz/scant 1/2 cup) rauchbier (I used Marzen)
Smoked Porter Toulouse
- Pork, salt and pepper (see recipe above for measurements)
- 10 garlic cloves (or 3-1/2 tablespoons pre-chopped frozen), very finely chopped and fried off in a pan with a little oil for 2 minutes, then allowed to cool
- 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper (in addition to the base recipe)
- 1/2 nutmeg, freshly grated
- 50 ml (1-3/4 fl oz/scant 1/4 cup) smoked porter
Mildly English with Black Pudding
- Pork, salt and pepper (see recipe above for measurements)
- 300 g (10-1/2 oz) black pudding diced into 2 cm (3/4 in) cubes
- 2 onions, blitzed to a paste in a food processor
- 12 sage leaves, picked and blitzed with the onion
- 1/4 nutmeg, freshly grated
- 50 ml (1-1/2 fl oz/3 tablespoons) English-style dark mild
More from The Beer Kitchen:
Reprinted with Permission from The Beer Kitchen and Published by Hardie Grant Books.
Want to rediscover what made grandma’s house the fun place we all remember? Capper’s Farmer — the newly restored publication from the rural know-how experts at Grit.com — updates the tried-and-true methods your grandparents used for cooking, crafting, gardening and so much more. Subscribe today and discover the joys of homemade living and homesteading insight — with a dash of modern living — that makes up the new Capper’s Farmer.
