Hot Links
- Feb 24
- 3 min read
If you haven’t yet added hot links to your smoked meats rotation here’s your chance. The recipe is simple, but the results will blow you away. Also, sausage-making is just fun. You can add more cayenne to make the sausages spicier. With all sausage-making, try to keep everything as cold as possible. Keep your hopper, die, grinder tray, etc. in the freezer while you prepare the sausage.
Total Time: 1 hour, 30 min.
Servings: 8–10
Ingredients
3 1/2 pounds Pre 95% Lean Ground Beef
1 1/2 pounds pork fatback
2 tablespoons salt
3/4 teaspoon Number 1 curing salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne
2 teaspoons thyme
1 teaspoon sage
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup lager beer
Hog casings
Special Equipment
Meat Grinder
Sausage Stuffer
Smoker
Instructions
Cut the pork fat into small pieces (whatever size your grinder can take) and break up the ground beef into similar sized chunks. Combine those in a ziplock bag.
In a small bowl combine all the spices except minced garlic and add this new mixture to the bag of meat.
Close up the bag and shake it around a bit to make sure the meat is evenly coated. Set in the refrigerator for at least an hour, preferably overnight.
While the meat is chilling, set up the grinder with a medium die (a 6mm works well) and start grinding. Working in batches and alternating chunks of beef and chunks of fat slowly grind sausage into a large bowl.
Once everything is ground up, add the minced garlic and beer, then start mixing everything together with your hands. The sausage should be wet and sticky, so add some more beer if necessary. When you are done mixing, put mix back into the refrigerator while you set up your stuffer.
Set up the stuffer and cut about 10 feet of hog casing to thread onto the stuffer’s nozzle.
When you’re ready, remove hopper from the freezer and fill it with the chilled sausage.
Working slowly, begin to stuff your sausage into the casing. Keep a hand on the nozzle to let the casing slide off slowly. When you begin to run out of room, twist the sausage into a large circle. If you see any air bubbles, pop them with a sharp poker, corn cob holders work well.
Once you hit the bottom of the stuffer, pull off a few inches of extra casing and tie off the end.
To make the links start at one end of the cased sausage and measure out about 8 inches. Pinch the sausage and measure off another 8 inches from there. Pinch again, now you should have two pinched spots to grab with 8 inches of sausage on one side and the rest of what you just stuffed on the other. Grabbing where you pinched, lift your sausage off the counter and begin to flip it toward you, imagine it’s a jump rope. After about 10 flips it should be getting tighter in the casing. Now, measure off another 8 inches and pinch, but you’re NOT going to flip this one. Another 8 inches from there and pinch. This should be your fourth link and this one you’re going to flip again, but this time away from you. After about 10 flips the sausage you’re holding should be tight and the one that you skipped should also be tight. Continue in this fashion until you have no sausage left to link. Again, you skip a link, flip the next one toward you, skip a link, flip the next one away from you, skip, flip toward, skip, flip away.
Cut links into pairs, so two sausages are always connected. Lay these on a baking rack and put them back into the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight, to dry out the casings and let the sausages cure.
When you’re ready, prepare smoker and hang the pairs of sausages inside. Insert a probe into the bottom of one of the links. Smoke your sausages at 220º F until they reach an internal temperature of 150º F.
Links can either be eaten right away or wrapped in foil and frozen.
