Smoked Pork Sausage as made by the Pennsylvania Dutch

The Pennsylvania Dutch made this smoked pork sausage in large batches. The original recipe calls for the completed sausage to be smoked and then canned in jars, but I freeze it once it has been stuffed and smoked.

It's interesting to note that the recipe as it was written said to take the completed sausage and "pack into sterilized jars and keep in a cool place". Somehow, I don't think that would fly in this day and age.

A Good Point

That brings up a this good point about following "vintage" recipes too closely in your own sausage making. It's perfectly fine to use most of the ingredients that the old sausage makers did but...

...We know a lot more about safe food handling and preservation now.

Just because something was done a "certain way" in the old days, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the "only" way.

Always use modern safe food handling and preservation. It would be foolish not to.

20 lbs of home-dressed lean pork meat

10 lbs of clear fat pork

1/2 lb fine salt (best quality)

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon ginger

2 tablespoons pepper

1 tablespoon sage

6 teaspoons (2 tablespoons) cure (either Instacure #1 or Prague Powder #1)

Cube all of the meat and mix it with the spices.

Pass the mixed meat and spices twice through the medium plate of your sausage grinder.

Stuff the sausage into natural pork casings and prepare for the smoke house.

Once smoked, cooled, and wrapped, this sausage keeps very well in the freezer.

I find that 3 hours of heavy smoke gives this sausage the flavor that my family prefers, and I like to use apple wood or corncobs instead of hickory when I can get them. The smoke they produce is a bit milder.

Make sure to leave the sausage in the meat smoker until it reaches an internal temperature of 152 degrees.

If you need advice on smoking your sausage, Click Here.

With the exception of using a cure to ready it for the smoker, this smoked pork sausage recipe is an exact copy of one from the 19th century. You can see that the sausage is less heavily spiced than most modern recipes.