friend wants to give me to piglets???

[deadeye]

A friend of mine wants to give me 2 small piglets already cut in half. I was thinking about trying to make some sausage. They both weigh about 40lbs each. Can I cold smoke them 1st before trying to make sausage or how should I handle it???

Thanks for the input

Derek Canada

[nsxbill]

I will defer to the Sausage-meisters, but IMHO, I would grind it up, add cure, stuff the sausages then smoke them.

Bill

<i>There is room on earth for all God's creatures....on my plate next to the mashed potatoes.</i>

[Phone Guy]

I have made alot of various kinds of sausage and have never heard of cold smoking first. I don't know everything but I would do a search on the web for sausage making and see for your self. I like Italian sausage myself. You can smoke it or use it in spaghetti or grill it or whatever you want. I found that they smoke perfectly in the Bradley and they get plenty of smoke.

[Foam Steak]

I love sausage as much as anyone.  In fact I am eating some dry kielbassi as I type this.  With sausage any old pig will do.  In fact older is better the meat will stand up to grinding better and there is more connective tissue and fat and stuff that sausage needs to be good.  

Now is 40lbs the entire dressed weight of the carcass? or is that on the hoof? or 40lbs for each half?  Wild pigs or domestic?  Either way if I got a gift like that sausage would be the last thing on my mind.  The meat is probably nice and tender and mild and would be great roasted, smoked, slow cooked, grilled.

If you are still intent on making sausage.  Like the other guys said, there is probably no point in cold smoking it first.  If it is your first time you can cut out some of the guesswork by using premixed spices.  I buy everything from www.butcher-packer.com.  Good luck, enjoy.

[BigSmoker]

I'm with foam steak.  I'm thinking Pig-a-Que[:p][:p][:p][:p]

Jeff



Some say BBQ is in your blood, if thats true my blood must be BBQ sauce.

[whitetailfan]

Ditto on the whole hog.
If you're going to make sausage anyway, then do not smoke it first.  Grind it up, stuff it, and smoke it.


<font color="green">whitetailfan</font id="green">
"Nice Rack"
Lethbridge, AB

[shell]

hell no [:(!]

[JJC]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by shell</i>
<br />hell no [:(!]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Hi Elly,

Not sure what you're disagreeing with--would you mind elaborating a bit?  Thanks!

John
Newton MA