Sausagefest 08'

[Ron Zega]

Date: April 5th

Location: Rick Murphy’s house, Central New York

Sunrise/Sunset: 5:39 am / 7:39 pm

Weather: Sunny, Calm

Temperature: 40/60

Wind: Calm

Equipment Used: Avery® Shooter’s Towel, Avery® Brushed Twill Logo Cap, and Avery® Canvas Logo Cap.

Sausage Preparers: Rick and Kimberly Murphy, Arliss Reed, Kyle Vanguilder, Kyle Holtz, Carl Cranker, Liz Squires, Pat Booth, Frank Clifton, John Hatfield, Chris Davanzo, Mark Carrara and Son, Dan Hojanicki and Girlfriend, Josh Friers, Avery® Pro-Staffers: Ron Zega, Mike Bard, David Rearick.

Journal Notes:

After last spring’s successful “Sausagefest” and another successful waterfowl season, we decided to hold the second annual “Sausagefest” to help us reduce the amount of duck and goose breasts in our freezers. Sausagefest is not only a day of making a huge amount of sausage, but a day to re-live the past season with the friends who shared it together. This year’s fest took place on Saturday, April 5th at Rick Murphy’s house and turned out to be a booming success.

Our goal this year was 300lbs of finished product by the end of the day. All the hunters brought 10-30 lbs of goose/duck breasts to throw into the mix and 150 lbs of pork shoulder had been ordered and thawed to mix in with the waterfowl. With Carl’s new “homemade” grinder and 5-6 guys cutting and trimming, we had all the meat ground and ready for spices and stuffing it pretty short order. Six 50 pound batches were mixed, (25lbs waterfowl / 25 lbs pork). We made several types of sausage including mild Italian, Cajun, German, Mexican chorizo, andouille (smoked and fresh), and Jalapeño, and one small batch of Maple.

Everyone took turns when it came to mixing the spices into the meat and then stuffing it into casings. The casings had to be pre-soaked in fresh water and triple rinsed before using, so we had a couple guys on that job throughout the day as well. As the sausage was cased, we had an assembly line set up, to cut and coil the sausage, then package it and label the packages. One of the batches we had mixed up (Andouille) recommended smoking the sausage, so Pat fired up his smoker, and we tried that out…it was excellent. Taste testing each sausage type throughout the day was also a job shared by the crew.

When all was said, done, and cleaned up, everyone went home with about 20-25 lbs of sausage and we exceeded our goal barely with 309 pounds of sausage made and packaged…hopefully that will hold us over until the 3rd annual “Sausagefest” next spring.

[The Goose Man]

Mmm mmm, looks like fun!

[Przy21]

HAHAHA You guys must have fun taking all that time with a 7lb. stuffer. The guy we hunt with has a big industrialized grinder. 200lb mixer, and a 50lb. stuffer. Evrybody that walks into his place goes WOW
They all talk about how it takes them 2-3 days to make 200lbs.
We make 400lbs in one day.

[Erik Nilsson]

Partytime!

[bcrawford]

I was just curious to see how many people were there because most states you can only possess two days limits. This looks much more than that

[Zach Byron]

HAHA, the title made me laugh out loud, lookin tastey guys!

[Evan Masters]

I had to look at that when im hungry

[wbfowler777]

nice

[Andrew Bremseth]

I was almost scared to click on this thread after seeing the title....looks like some good stuff guys! Need any taste testers let us know haha

[CluckmeMN]

Wow....my mind is in the gutter....Looks like fun!! Im with andrew on the taste testers!!