I really enjoyed the quality of the photographs/layout of this book. The instructions were easy to understand, a quality production.

This is an amazing book! There is so much information here, but it is still not overwhelming. There are many great step by step recipes and there are also sections about interesting people who are pro sausage makers. If you are not feeling ready to jump into making your own, there is also a section on cooking with sausage that has helpful tips.

We have recently purchased a home grinder, so we were able to try out a few of the recipes. We loved everything we have tried and we now make as much of our own sausage as we can.

A collection of various sausage making . Even vegetarian sausage making was shared and recipe to make with the sausage.......

Interesting book, lots of instructions, good recipes and nice pictures.

Perhaps for the novice its a little daunting to begin with.

Not the most innovative sausage book but definitely worth the read. I'd recommend this to someone just starting out making sausage as the instructions are clear and it has easy to follow recipes.

Don't let the dated look of this book, stop you from buying it. It is wonderful.

This comprehensive guide covers everything a home sausage maker needs to know, from equipment (and why it may be better to spend a little more on the right stuff) to ingredients to techniques. A variety of sausage recipes are included, and I feel confident that after working through this cookbook, a home sausage maker would have the knowledge and skills to invent their own recipes as well.

If you are planning on making your own sausage, begin with this book. Not only is it comprehensive about techniques and equipment, it is also bursting with delicious recipes. These cover everything from traditional breakfast sausages to seafood and even vegetarian ones.

My favorite part of the book, however, was the profiles of sausage makers from all over North America. Not only are their stories inspiring, they were free with their tips for home cooks.

An essential book for those wanting to pursue making sausage.

Now we're cooking! I get some funny looks when I sing the praises of the sausage but in my opinion it's a very underrated piece of food. It's versatile and diverse, but this book showed me it's even more diverse than I was expecting. More of that later though.

Making sausages at home is one of those oddly rewarding projects you can undertake. It's like a little piece of butchery that you can do at home without requiring huge resources or space. Personally, my home butchery started with curing my own bacon which I found great fun, and sausages are a logical progression of that. It's great needing just basic tools and a little space to bring together some simple ingredients into something that is so common, yet few people would even consider attempting to make. Yet, for such a little time you can serve up something a little special and take pride in having created from scratch.

This book goes into great technical detail about sausage making without being intimidating. Okay, I admit I kinda skipped over some of the more technical recommendations and stuff because a) I'm english so USDA food labelling is meaningless for my purposes b) I'm not actually making a sausage right now and c) we all think we know everything anyway (granted there's a huge difference between my knowing that the meat needs to be properly cooked and the exact temperatures and such described in this book - but I can check them when I'm actually making sausages). Now sure, if you're a sausage fan some of this aspect will be known or obvious to you. But it's presented well and you can easily breeze over the bits you know to get to things you want to know.

The bulk of the book is a range of recipes. Now my english pride asks why our huge range of amazing sausages didn't get more coverage here, but I was too excited by some of the other recipes to feel too neglected. The seafood sausages especially caught my eye - a clam hot dog? A crayfish sausage? I thought I was pretty sausage savvy but this is a new world to me and one I want to explore. I loved learning about the asian sausages too. Most of the asian flavoured sausaged I've tried in my life have really been western sausages with a twist rather than the genuine articles.

Mixed in with the recipes are a selection of "Trade Secrets" in the "Meet the Makers" articles scattered throughout. It's hard for me to compare this 4th edition with the original from 1981 but it's fair to say these are either brand new or at the very least the most updated feature of the book. They add a wide range of voices. And yeah, don't be surprised that with all those different perspectives some will probably grab your attention more than others but you know what? You don't have to read them all. They're a great way of breaking up a list of what are essentially fairly simple recipes (spoiler alert: while the methods of each sausage aren't always identical they tend to be more similar than they are different - you're mainly here for weights and ingredients).

Actually, even if you're not planning on making sausages jump towards the end and the recipes do get a bit more involved - there's a section on cooking with sausages too. Again, some are simple and fairly obvious (sausage and eggs...), others are unexpected adventures (have you ever considered a sausage mousse before? Your quest is over, there's a recipe for that) that leave the mouth watering.

The book is stuffed with gorgeous photographs that will undoubtedly tempt you into trying something you would've passed over otherwise. The ones showing the steps involved just scream "I can do that too!" and the finished products... well if you get your first attempts looking that good you've found your calling but it's aspirational in the sense that it's not that far beyond what us mere mortals can muster in those early days.

The sausage is far more diverse than many people give credit. It can be simple or sophisticated. This book explores that so well. From recipes to cooking techniques to recipes. It really has something for everyone (and despite my talk of butchery that does include vegetarians too). Whether you're about to dabble in your first sausages and want a complete guide, or you're a seasoned sausagier after some inspiration and/or tips - pick up a copy of this book.

Home Sausage Making, 4th Edition: From Fresh and Cooked to Smoked, Dried, and Cured: 100 Specialty Recipes
Home Sausage Making, 4th Edition: From Fresh and Cooked to Smoked, Dried, and Cured: 100 Specialty Recipes by Charles G. Reavis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oversize, poetic and with lovely photography, are the primary expectations of recipe books these days. Celebrity chefs grin big smiles and offer "healthy" or "decadent" recipes intended more to delight the mind than serve as actual instruction for home cooks.

This text is no less beautiful for not having Jamie Oliver on the front, but offers substantial instruction on the task itself, rather than the celebrity penning it.

Sausage making is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of work involved, here is equipment that is absolutely necessary to get the job done, and there's the time investment in curing. This is farmhouse butchering, and the basics are walked through with clarity, explaining things as they go along.

If you're ready, if you have made the investment in time, energy and sharp grindy things, pick this book up too. It'll get you going, and teach you enough that you'll eventually branch out on your own.

If you build a smokehouse out back, though, call me, I do love me some smoked sausage.

View all my reviews

My family loves sausage. The use of sausage whether on pizza, with breakfast, or an evening meal, sausage is a popular item in many diets today. This book will guide you on a new adventure of making your own sausage and the recipes share the use of various ingredient combinations is great too.

Let me start off by saying that I love sausage. Last year, Joel was taking brats and smoking them on the grill and they were amazing! And this was just plain ol' store bought brats we were eating. I can't wait to make our own brats and smoke them this summer!! WOOT WOOT!

Okay, so this book is great for a beginner, there's information about ingredients and picking them as well as tools that you'll need, pros and cons of different varieties. Now we already have an electric meat grinder, so I wasn't in the market to change, but a hand grinder does sound like it would be awesome.

The recipes themselves are divided into several different genres from pork to game to poultry to fish to vegetable. Throughout the recipes are areas that focus on techniques, including a lengthy section on aged meat sausages, something I'm not sure I'm quite ready to give a go. And there are stories from various different sausage makers and their tips. The one that I heard over and over through the book is to be willing to try something new and don't expect perfection, but know that it will be tasty.

I was very excited to see a recipe for apple and pork sausage. Joel's favorite sausage is apple and comes from a small butcher shop in Queen Anne, a neighborhood in Seattle, WA. I made up a batch last night. It was actually quite fun and I think it has the potential to be tweaked to give him something comparable if not better than what he remembers.

I could not download this book it was not released in kindle friendly format and the pdf would not open. I contacted netgalley and tried what they advised to no avail. I am unable therefore to leave a review.

The book is full of beautiful pictures that make you want to try making all the sausages in there. It is a great book for any beginner sausage making enthusiast as it has a very detailed "Basics" of sausage making section that covers everything from the equipment to the stuffing (meat and vegetarian) and the casing. It even has a very detailed "Essential Techniques" section which shows you the steps of sausage making and even teaches you how to cook them the right way without suffering a broken casing and the risk of losing all those lovely juices. Recipes from all over the world - British, South African, Italian, American, Chinese, German, etc etc etc... So many delicious looking recipes to try. Definitely one for the sausage enthusiast.

This is a superb book! A lovely book to read (as a non-American reviewer, I still enjoyed the anecdotes from the various producers) but more importantly an excellent guide to sausage making for both beginners and more experienced cooks. I've made sausages before, but still enjoyed the detail provided in the Sausages 101, and for the complete beginner the information provided regarding ingredients, utensils and techniques would be very useful. For me, the value of a recipe book is in the number of recipes I read and want to try - and in Home Sausage Making there were plenty of those! I made the Linguica, Luganega, Lap Cheong and Country Breakfast Sausages and was impressed with them all. I will certainly try more.
I found the instructions for smoking excellent - used my Weber grill to smoke the Linguica following the directions given in the book (never done it before) and I was delighted with the results.
The book covers a very wide range of sausages from all over the world, and whilst vegetarian and fish sausages have no appeal for me, I can imagine that there are cooks who would be delighted to have these included in a recipe book. What I did enjoy were the recipes incorporating sausages, as well as those for sauces and pickles to be served with sausages.
Definitely a book to be recommended!

The recipes in this book are fabulous, I would love to make quite a few of them. The are easy to follow and well explained. The information on food handing and safety information, as well as requirements are excellent. There is a step by step instructions with photos which are extensive.
The details and information about smoking is very good, but I think it isn't something I would feel confident in doing, but having said that there are a lot of sausages that are made to use fresh.
There are a number of Makers featured, who share their recipes for sausages and tips. These are really great and make not only interesting stories but presenting fabulous sausages.

I was looking for a good home sausage making reference cookbook and found it. The types of meats, poultry, fish, etc. that make good sausages are explained and so is the equipment needed to make sausage. The book if full of tips and recipes that are shared from sausage makers from all over, as well as many sausage recipes with pictures.

Well.. now I need to buy a proper grinder with all the bells and whistles.

My apologies; couldn't review since it's not in a Kindle format