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Myself and a friend are going to making some sausage. We have a grinder/stuffer, and are looking for a supplier of natural casings. Is there any suppliers in the Durham area or is there an online supplier you have used and would recommend?
Thank you in advance
IFH
Natural casings are frequently available at local butchers and in season, at grocery stores, such as Loblaws. You will have to ask around. They usually come in a plastic container and are well salted to preserve. You just have to soak in water to soften prior to using. I found a great on-line Canadian Company in B.C. that sells all the meat cures, spice mixes and synthetic casings. You can find them at www.stuffers.com. Last year I made bear kielbasa and venison summer sausage with supplies from them.
Halenda's.
As mentioned Halendas and many grocery stores. I also have found numerous sausage supplies(nitrites, casings, spices, kits, etc) in Tractor Supply Stores.
Last one I grabbed some supplies in was the TSC in Uxbridge a year ago.
TSC carries casings as well as spice for sausage
Thanks for everyone's replies. I have checked Stuffers web site and the locale TSC, at present Halenda's is our best bet, they have just what we need to get started.
Butcher/Packer from Detroit
TheSausagemaker from Buffalo
Canada Compound from Toronto and Winnipeg
I realize it's a bit far, but Nesbitt's Meats in Lindsay has always been a great place for me to get all my sausage stuff. He sells both natural and synthetic casing. I buy my mild Ital spice from him in bulk, as well as the slabs of pork fat. Adam is the owner. Great guy. He'll also will give you the correct mix ratios for pork shoulder:water:spice:game meat:fat. If you tell him you have 50lbs of ground venison, he will bag you up the correct amounts of what you need. Prices are reasonable as well. I've also bought stuff mailorder from Halfords. I've tried the Cabelas and TSC spices and didn't like either. Found they both would have one or more spices that overpowered the mix. The spices I've got from Nesbitt's are the best I've used.
Start looking for good sale pricing on pork picnic shoulder (bone in) in early October. I usually grab it and freeze it when I see a deal at $1.99 per pound (or less). It really sucks if you leave it till sausage time and it's $5.99 per pound!
I too use the "picnic" shoulders and buy them 5-6 at a time and freeze them for everything from pulled pork to deer sausage. I normally use 50% /50% venison to pork shoulder(domestic) which probably gives somewhere around 25% total fat, just right for the lean venison without over powering the deer meat flavor.
When using wild hog I add more pork as the wild hogs are leaner.
Thanks Fenelon, I will have to look up this place in Lindsay as searching and gathering the needed spices locally has been a little difficult until I found spice mix at TSC.
Thanks for the information and advice Fenelon. Lindsay is about a 45 minute drive for me. I have a friend in the area so an early Saturday drive might be in order, breakfast with my friend at the Olympia then over to see Adam.