We celebrated our first sheep harvest with Snag-a-Palooza, our inaugural sausage-making fiesta. An entire beast was put through the mincer, so we invited a number of mutton-connoisseurs and aspiring snag-o-nauts to come and belt out some bangers. With several sausage fillers on the go, including a couple of 5kg hand-cranked machines hired from a butcher, the group made short work of the meat and had a vast amount of sausages ready in time for a barbeque lunch. Despite having armfuls of library books to prime ourselves, there were a few handy tricks we developed over the day to make the sausage-making a little smoother:

• Don’t tie the end of the sausage while you’re making it to allow air pumped out by the sausage-maker to escape,
• Allow about 10cm of empty casing either end of the sausage to allow for squeezing the filling to eliminate air bubbles,
• Construct one big sausage, then make the links afterwards by pinching, then alternate your twists forwards and backwards for each small sausage,
• Feed the casing out slowly, allowing the mince to inflate the casing with minimal air bubbles,
• Avoid making sausages in your loungeroom, as explosions, followed by mince showers, are possible.

Guiding fresh sausage into its spiral.

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