Notes ·
How much meat you need to bring for sausage
Two numbers, and the reason a shop has them at all.
If you want sausage made out of your own animal, there is a minimum, and it is not one number for everything.
The two minimums
Link sausage takes 20 pounds. That covers the link sausage and the hot link sausage, and dry link sausage counts against the same 20, because it is link sausage that has been dried.
Pan sausage, summer sausage, and survival sticks take 16 pounds.
Ask about beef jerky when you call.
Why there is a minimum
Sausage is not made one pound at a time. The meat is ground, seasoned, and mixed as a batch, then run through the stuffer. Below a certain weight there is not enough in the mixer to season evenly, and what does not make it out of the equipment is a larger share of a small batch than of a full one. The minimum is the point where the batch behaves.
Counting toward it
The weight is the meat going in, not the sausage coming out. Seasonings, cheese, and jalapeño are priced on top of the sausage rate rather than counted as part of your poundage — the smokehouse page lists what each addition costs.
Jerky works the other way around from what people expect: it is priced on the raw weight that goes in, not the dried weight that comes out. Meat loses a lot of water in the dryer, so those are very different numbers.
If you are short
You have two options and both are ordinary. Pick the product with the lower minimum, or hold your trim in the freezer until you have enough. A whole beef or a whole hog generally puts plenty of trim toward sausage on its own; a partial share may not.
Hot link sausage is made to order, so call ahead and allow time for it. The short six-inch links are only made if you ask for them. Call (979) 843-5211 and say what you have and what you want out of it.
Questions