On a number of occasions I have told people that I make my own sausage and they act surprised. Not that I don’t appear capable, but because I feel that there is a misconception that making homemade sausage is difficult.

Depending on what you’re making homemade sausage can clearly be time consuming, but it is by no means difficult. I am a fairly seasoned sausage maker and one of my favorite things to make is a cold smoked barbecue sausage that was born out of the desire to have the flavors of pulled porked without needing to camp out for eight hours by a smoker.

These particular sausages take nearly two days to complete a batch, but when they grill up with that beautiful mahogany color and rich smoky flavor it makes it all worth while. Still, you don’t need really need any fancy equipment, crazy ingredients or spend days in the kitchen trying to assemble a batch.

If you’ve ever thought about making your own homemade sausage, then I strongly encourage you to stop procrastinating, grab yourself a pork shoulder and a knife and get to work.

This is my grinder, there are many like it, but this one is mine.

While a meat grinder will produce the best results, it isn’t absolutely necessary. A hand driven model like the one shown here will set you back about $50, but will add about half an inch to your biceps. For about the same money you can buy an attachment for most kitchen stand mixers that will allow you to grind your own meat.

If none of those are an option and you have a food processor, then you can cube the meat, freeze it and then pulse it in small batches for 10 to 15 seconds at a time. Occasionally you will want to stop and mix things around so you don’t wind up emulsifying the meat. At this point you’ll want to handle it as little as possible, placing it on some parchment paper and removing any gristle or chunks of fat.

Once you have your meat ground you’ll want to season it. If you were interested in making something like a sweet Italian sausage you’d add things like salt, pepper, garlic, fennel, allspice, oregano and a liquid like red wine to give the mixture some moisture. After seasoning my sausage mix I always give it thirty to forty minutes to settle before I package it up.

So far it seems pretty easy, right? But here comes the rub that I believe is what keeps people from making homemade sausage – casing the meat. When you think of sausage you most likely think of a link that is nestled in a convenient delivery device for easy consumption.

Well, I’m here to tell you that there is no rule saying you have to case your homemade sausage mixture. It is by far the most time consuming element of the sausage making process and while I usually I case mine, you don’t.

When I’m making a batch of Italian sausage I’ll generally start out with three or four pork shoulders, which will net me anywhere from 12 to 16 pounds of meat. I separate the fat cap from the leaner meat and grind them separately using to different sized plates to give the sausage texture since I don’t add any additional fat.

After seasoning what I’ve ground I will case anywhere from half to two thirds of the mixture. Then, I will vacuum seal the rest loose in one pound measures and freeze it for later use.

The packs of loose homemade sausage meat come in handy if I’m making a bolognese and want to spice things up rather than use ordinary ground beef. Also, you can defrost the loose meat, form it into patties and toss it on the grill for a different kind of burger night.

So, if you’ve ever been tempted to try making your own sausage, don’t let any preconceived notion that you have to case your product stop you. There are a number of ways to use loose sausage and resources like Bruce Aidell’s Complete Sausage Book are great guides for not only sausage formulations, but for things to do with what you have made.

If you give this, or anything else here, a try we’d love for you to drop us a comment and tell us how you liked it, or what you did differently to suit your tastes.