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Apr 28, 2023

At Rooster Street, a crash course in the art of making sausage [video]

It's "many hands make light work" as sausage-class students gather to mix wine

It's "many hands make light work" as sausage-class students gather to mix wine into the basic ground pork recipe at Rooster Street Butcher's sausage-making class.

There's a science, it turns out, involved in making even the simplest foods.

Take sausage, for example.

Lots of cultures, from Greece and Mesopotamia to China and early Europeans, hit upon sausage as a way not only to make efficient use of every bit of their butchering, but also to preserve meats to eat later. Native Americans, too, made pemmican, a mix of dried, powdered meat, fat and, sometimes, berries and other ingredients.

So, on the surface, sausage is pretty straightforward: meat and fat, sometimes stuffed into a casing and sometimes just molded into portions.

But take a closer look at sausage-making, and you’ll find a process that involves a whole body of knowledge. Many of our ancestors learned how to make sausage because they had to: If you didn't know, you didn't eat. Now that we have grocery stores and refrigerators and conglomerates making our sausage, many of us are far removed from what used to be everyday know-how.

A dozen people recently spent a Saturday morning at Rooster Street Butcher in Lititz to regain some of that knowledge.

What's that saying when people don't want to talk about the gory details? "You don't want to know how the sausage gets made."

Dispelling that attitude has become a passion for Tony Page, who owns Rooster Street Butcher with his wife, Kristina.

Since opening their first butcher shop in Elizabethtown in 2012, the Pages have focused on meat from locally raised animals. In their Lititz location, they’ve expanded the operation to become a full-service butcher, including more offerings, a cafe and popular classes on what to do with the meats they’ve butchered on-site.

One recent three-hour class took students through the entire process — except for the butchering itself — and we each left with 3 pounds of the sausage we proudly made.

Hair tucked under baseball caps and scarves, white aprons tied firmly around our waists, we are about to turn chunks of pork into sausage through the alchemy of correct meat-to-fat ratios, cold temperatures and our own hands, with the help of hulking equipment that gives us extra muscle.

When we arrive, Page and Rooster Street's production manager, Chris Williamson, already have butchered the pig, defatted all the meat, and then added fat back into the ratio for today's fresh sausage project.

"You can make a lean sausage," Page says, "but then you’ll have to add something — soy, milk powder, potato starch — to replace the role of fat in the process."

We start with the most basic of ingredients: small chunks of pork meat and fat.

We’ll add garlic, sea salt, parsley, chili flakes and freshly cracked black pepper. Two class members smash the garlic cloves and roughly chop parsley; Karlene Travis mans the scale to make sure proportions are correct. The dry ingredients are scattered atop the pork chunks, and Andrew Fahringer digs in up to his elbows to toss the pork like a salad and thoroughly disperse the seasonings throughout the meat.

Tip for this step: Measure.Don't just pick the spices you want and toss them in; the balance of moisture, meat and fat will be thrown off.

The pork and fat will make two passes through Rooster Street's 2-horsepower grinder. Williamson first rubs some pork fat on the grinder blade for lubrication, then we load up the meat pan on top and feed chunks of pork through for the first, more coarse grind. Half of the ground meat is then sent back and ground through a plate with smaller holes. It can be a messy process, but a sheet of plastic wrap shielding the grinder's head helps funnel meat into a red plastic bin.

Tip for this step: If you’re working off a typical home setup, such as a mixer attachment or something similar, cut the meat and fat small and keep it cold — not frozen — until grinding. How do you know how cold is cold enough? Williamson says it should "have a nice little crust" of ice on the surface.

Marie Abdallah, left, finished with chopping a mound of parsley to be tossed into the sausage mix, watches John Wentworth prep garlic. They were two of 12 people who gathered at Rooster Street Butcher in Lititz to learn the sausage-making process.

With the plastic bin of meat turned out onto a metal work table, it's all hands on deck to mix together the piles of coarse- and fine-grind pork, then time to hand-knead in carefully measured liquid ingredients, water and wine — a Chianti — to emulsify and blend the meat.

Michael Burget is busily digging in with everyone else, pork clinging to his fingers.

"It's fun!" he says with a grin, adding that he has meat-cutting experience in his past. "It's creative, in a way. You can make your own flavor."

At this point, it's time to quick-chill the meat again after it's been warmed by all the handling: first, being augured through the meat grinder and, now, by our hands. First, though, the meat gets divided into quarter portions and put in Rooster Street's cooling room (which is colder than a home refrigerator. At home, it may be quicker to toss it in the freezer until a really thin layer of ice forms on the outside).

Tip for this stage: Don't be tempted to "save time" and skip cooling the sausage meat. Keeping the meat cold not only is safer, but helps the meat and fat bind more completely. And that, in turn, gives your sausage better texture and holds it together.

People who attempt making sausage on their own, says Rooster Street's Tony Page, most often make these mistakes:

While the meat is getting cold again, there's a hiatus in the auction for snacks and to grab something to drink. The class is a mix of ages and cooking skills, from professional chefs to Kimberly Von Holt, who admits she doesn't cook much at all. She was "living vicariously," she says, after buying fiance Andrew Fahringer the class as a birthday gift.

"He honestly cooks just about every meal for us," Von Holt says a few days after the class. "He just Googles recipes for fun."

Fahringer is a hunter, Von Holt says, so many of his recipes center around the game he's harvested. Would he make sausages at home now that he has one batch under his belt?

"I’m sure he's already (searched online) for KitchenAid attachments and the handheld grinders they were showing us," Von Holt says, laughing.

Don Palmer, meanwhile, is devoted to grilling, and also has a pellet-smoker at home "for the slow-go with meats." Learning to make sausage appealed to him, the retired Lancaster city police officer says, "because I can control the ingredients."

It was also a natural fit with the other cooking class he's taken. A few years ago, Palmer and a friend took a one-day class tied to a meat-smoking competition at the New Holland Fair.

"Pulled pork, ribs, brisket," Palmer says. "We said it's the best hundred bucks we ever spent!"

A dozen students spent part of a recent Saturday at Rooster Street Butcher in Lititz, learning the basics of making a dish found in many cultures worldwide: sausage.

Here's where things start to get a little trickier.

Until now, the difficult part has been the need to carefully measure. Thanks to mechanical grinders, basic hand-mixing and the knowledge of Page and Williamson, we haven't needed a whole lot of skill.

But, suddenly, this process opens up a lot of options.

Casing is the first: What will we use to form our sausages? There are options, ranging all the way to plant-based cellulose casings, but Rooster Street uses hog casings — a layer of the animal's intestines — for making their sausages, so that's what we’re using today. "We use them for the feel and ‘snap’ when you’re biting in to the sausage," Page says. They have just one supplier: Syracuse Casing Company, the only company selling only American-sourced and -processed hog casings.

Good casings are permeable, which results in a deep flavor and allows the sausage to absorb cooking flavors, Page says.

Divided into four teams of three, we pull our share of the meat out of the fridge and debate about what to add to our group's batch of sausage: Basil and dried apples? Mango and jalapeno? Sharp provolone and pesto?

Karlene Travis checks the casing as sausage is compacted and pressed in.

We opt to use the hydraulic stuffer: The meat gets loaded into a barrel, a lid gets placed on top and we slide dripping-wet casing onto the horn, or the spout through which the meat will be extruded. It's sort of like trying, with wet hands, to stretch the opening of a really thin, slippery balloon over the end of a wide, slippery straw.

One person on the knee control that presses the meat through the horn, one person at the end of the horn to keep an eye on the sausage as it emerges, and a third on the watch for any air bubbles or bursts: With only a couple mishaps, we’re rewarded with three long strings of filled casings.

Making sure both ends of each strand are knotted, we make quick work of creating the links. Gently pinching the sausage at regular intervals, we create a meatless gap in the casing and then, holding the sections of meat to either side, spin — at least five times — to form two separate links.

Amy Rieker twists the sausage casings into links.

Tips for this stage: If you’re adding ingredients that contain water — such as fresh fruit — either used dried fruit or factor in the added moisture from the start.

— Keep the casings wet, for easier handling.

— Keep an eye on the sausage as it comes through the horn and into the casing. If you spot air bubbles, give them a quick nick with a paring knife before continuing.

— If the casing rips, squeeze out the meat, tie off what you’ve already stuffed and start a new rope of sausage. You can either put that meat back in the machine, or save it to cook loose.

— When you’re creating the links, alternate the direction in which you spin. That helps your string of sausages not to unravel.

Don Palmer, the retired city officer, hasn't had a chance yet to cook up his provolone-and-basil sausage, but Von Holt and fiance Fahringer have prepared their apple-and-basil creation two ways: sauteed with onions and red peppers, and grilled.

Mine spent about 24 hours, uncovered, in the refrigerator, before grilling over indirect heat as the main course for Sunday lunch.

Tips for this step: Make sure there's enough to go around.

Tony Page shared a basic ratio of meat and fat, salt, seasonings and cold liquid for sausage-making. To make your own, scale as needed:

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