We have the Meats...

We really do have the meats! Not quite like the famous fast food chain with the same saying, but we can process our own meats! This is something that we do once a year in early spring. It usually takes us about half a day, but the end result is totally worth it. Our freezer is now stocked with homemade sausage and brats!

We started by gathering what we needed such as seasonings, natural casings, beer, and dehydrated jalapenos. (The jalapenos are actually from our garden!) You can see that each type of meat we make uses a different seasoning blend. We also use a special cheese that melts at higher temperatures.

 Then we cut the pork roasts into chunks and ground it up with our meat grinder. (Sorry about the high pitch noise in the video. Not sure why that happened!)

 After the meat is ground, we weigh the meat and add the seasoning. The type of seasoning that is added depends on what is being made. For our bacon sausage, we also add ground bacon! The bacon sausage is a favorite in my house. For our brats, we also add the jalapenos, beer and the cheese. This year we used a combination of cheddar and Swiss.

The seasoning and other add ins are mixed in by hand. Once it is all mixed, the meat gets ran through the grinder one more time. Then it gets wrapped and put in the freezer.

For the brats, the meat gets ran through the grinder attached with the stuffing horn. The casings are put on the horn and the meat is ran through, making one long brat. Then it gets twisted into smaller individual portions.

You can see I had some help writing on the packages this year! The kids love to watch and help in the process.

Now our freezer is full, and our bellies will be, too!