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Class Type: Hands on
Location: 316A Shawmut Ave, Boston MA, 02118
Come meet our team and learn all about whole animal breakdowns! This demonstration at our South End (Boston) butcher shop will teach you everything you need to know! Class sizes are limited to a max of 6 people and begin at 7:00pm. Wine and local craft beers will be offered out of the shop’s own selection, and water will be provided as well for all attendants. Each class generally runs for an hour and a half (but can run longer) and each member will go home with at least 3lbs of handmade (by you) sausage as well as a Walden Local cooler bag!
Whole animal butchery is grounded in the idea of using every last bit of the animal (that is edible) in order to fully honor that animal’s great sacrifice. Sausage making is a fundamental part of this practice! Through the process of trimming, seasoning, grinding, mixing, and stuffing, a skilled butcher can turn under-utilized pieces of pork into a prized delicacy, feeding themselves with something they themselves have made. When it has passed through your own hands, there is no reason to wonder (or hide) how the sausage gets made.
During this hands-on class, each participant will know this tradition. We will be discussing:
Tools and Technics
- Types of sausage casings
- Types of dyes and blades
- Twine
- Stuffing sausage
- Grinding
- Sausage poking
Basics of Sausage
- What it is and why make it
- Types and styles (course vs fine, loose vs springy)
- Muscle structure (tender vs tough, why use pork)
- Types of fats (why use one and not the other)
- Emulsifications (and temperature)
Each member of the class will be:
- Seasoning meat (pre-cut by our butcher staff) by hand
- Using a grinder
- Emulsifying their own sausage by hand
- Using a sausage stuffer to “case” (putting the ground meat into a pork intestine) their emulsified pork mix
- Linking and tying their cased sausages into recognizable sausage links and chains