To Get Started
OK....here I/We go. Making brats and other similar sausages like Breakfast Patties, Polish, Italian, etc. is really easy and it is very difficult to make a mistake that you cannot live with. Making summer sausage or any of the "cured" styles that will not need to be aged, etc. IS a little tougher and you need to follow the rules just like canning so you do not kill yourself or loved ones. I would like to start out with the simple and safe ones and move on to the more difficult and mysterious styles later. I have yet to master making Salami and hope to find a guru via this thread that can help me achieve this next level!
The recipies I will mention on this thread are all ones I USE AND LIKE......CHARLIE TESTED and used all the time. There are many other variations out there (just do a Google Search) but the ones I will post here are all liked by myself and family and we use them year after year.
If you have a knife and meat grinder with a course 3/8"and medium 3/16" grinding plate and nothing more....here is where you start. Try making some simple breakfast sausage. It is cheap, easy to make and will be better than anything you bring home from the grocery store. You can make this up in small batches and eat it fresh or freeze it for future use. FRESH is always better than frozen and is the main reason I like to make my own at home.
Breakfast sausage can be made in patties or else stuffed into the links. I will go into stuffing links in future threads. For starters, lets go with the patties. This is THE best way to enter into making sausage for the ultimate beginner. You and your family will love the results and move on to the more exotic stuff.
My Experience Number 1 - Any and all meats grind best when cut into small chunks and allowed to "almost freeze" or get stiff before you grind it. Warmer meat has a tendency to come out of the grinder mushy. If it comes out of your grinder looking like mush instead of spaghetti or pasta, something is wrong. Either your grinder is dull, you have not tightened every thing up right or ??? Knowing how to properly grind your meat is critical and should NOT be taken lightly. I learned this years ago and would suggest that you make sure you have this down pat before going further if you are a novice. I will go into fine grinding for other sausages later and that stuff WILL come out of the grinder looking like goo, but for most of your breakfast, brat, etc. sausages you want the meat to come out of the grinder plate in nice even spaghetti like strings.
To make simple and GOOD breakfast sausage, all you need to do is the following.
Medium grind some lean pork butt or if you want to use venison, etc. mix it 50/50 with pork butt via the medium grinder plate. If you only have the larger plate......no big deal.
The stuff you buy at the grocery store is mostly fat. (that is where they get rid of it and charge you more than if you buy it for feeding the birds, i.e. suet) I worked in a place that made sausage and after I saw how they filled them with fat, suet, floor sweepings, etc. I swore off store sausage for the rest of my life. The sausages I mention here and in the future will be far leaner than what you get at the store.....trust me! Some may not prefer this lean taste....but I do and so does my family......and eating 80-90% fat just because it tastes good is NOT a good thing for the long haul. When you look at fresh uncooked brats in the store, you will note that they are almost white with a little grey/red texture. That is because they are almost all fat and left over whatever they have at the end of the day and this is what they use to make brats. They may taste great......but once you see them being made there, you will NEVER go back after trying the ones you make yourself.
Back to the breakfast sausage...........
Grind up 5 lbs of the above mentioned pork or pork/game mix. To this add in:
1 Tbsp table salt
1 Tsp sage
2 Tsp fresh ground pepper or the normal stuff out of the shaker
1 Tsp freshly ground cloves
2 Tsp freshly ground mace or the pre ground stuff
2 Tsp coriander
1 Whole nutmeg grated or the equivalent of what you have laying around
1 Cup water
1/4 cup of dried milk to act as a binder and help hold everything together
Mush or mix it all together and then cover and let sit for a few hours so the spices can blend in. You can eat this straight up....but it is best to age it for a little while to let the spices work their magic.
Variations that I like:
Add in a little maple syrup and or a couple drops of smoke flavor. The maple syrup ones are best when you are serving with pancakes and the standard ones are better with eggs and toast. The smoke part is your preference.
Take the mix keeping everything cold as you can and make into patties and or batch sizes you will use. With the batches, you can later make them into patties right before you cook, or press out patties ahead of time. You CAN freeze these and they will fry up wonderful....but the fresh ones WILL be better.
I like to use a little olive oil in the pan and am sure to pre-heat it when I fry up the patties in a good cast iron pan or griddle of course as the residue is much easier to clean up and the patties taste a little better.
ENJOY
OK....that is the first contribution I have. I will add in one other kind of sausage each time I post and look forward to all postings you all have to offer. Later we can get into the finer points of the cured, etc. sausages that take a little more effort.
I look forward to many posts, with ideas we can all share and use to improve our skills on this never ending topic.
my own little version that is VERY easy to make and is excellent. And, oh yeah......a whole bunch of jerky made in several styles. 
