Basic Sausage Production Class at LCI

In august I had the opportunity to attend a leisure class at the Louisiana Culinary Institute.  Jeremy Wells from FairelesCourses.net joined me in Chef Dave Tiner's Basic Sausage Production class.  I have long been a fan of grilling, smoking, and eating sausages, so I was really excited about the opportunity to learn about different sausage making tips and ingredients.

The results from my Basic Sausage Production class at LCI

The class size for the class was limited to 12 so everyone could get their hands dirty and receive plenty of attention from the certified chef instructors.  We made four different types or raw sausages: Breakfast, Italian, Bratwurst, and Chorizo.

Chef Dave instructs the class about cleaning and testing the sausage casings

Each member of the class started their sausage recipes with one and half pounds of ground pork shoulder.  From there they all differed based on the unique seasonings and ingredients of each sausage.  For the Italian sausage we toasted our own fennel seeds before mixing them with the meat.  We also cased all of the sausages other than the breakfast sausage which used sage as a key ingredient.  I wanted to form that one into patties.

Jay's mixing bowl for homemade Chorizo with just enough paprika!

At the end of the class Chef Dave had some different sausages for us to try and we also got to go home with about six pounds of sausage that we hand-mixed and cased.  I learned a fair amount about the basics of sausage production and it only made me want to take some more advanced charcuterie classes so I could really get into curing meats and smoked sausages.  If any of you are interested in taking a Saturday leisure class at LCI, make sure to check out their schedule here: http://www.lci.edu/site36.php.  And remember, never stop learning, especially when it comes to eating and drinking!

Jay shows off some of his homemade sausage!