A number of tips were gleaned from the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Specifically, I began by selecting a 3.5 lb pork rib loin, and a 3.5 lb chunk of pork belly; much better cuts of meat that go into most sausage. The rib loin is a darker color of meat than the tenderloin, there's a lot of flavor there but it can get tough when cooked on its own, but works great for sausage making; the pork belly served as the fat component, as the total percentage of fat in a sausage should be minimally 25-30%; herein it was probably 30-33%. After trimming away all connective tissue, I cut both sets of meat into 2 cm strips and was left with about 6 lbs of meat, to which I added 55g kosher salt, tossed to distribute evenly, and refrigerated for 1 hour. Just prior to making the sausage, I placed the meat into the freezer along with my meat grinder assembly for 30 minutes. This might seem odd, but it's crucial to keep everything cold for the sausage to achieve the right consistency and avoid breaking (which results in a dry, mealy or grainy texture in the mouth). The pork was then ground using the large grinding die and was separated into 3 roughly even portions and returned to the fridge until I was ready for mixing in the flavor components.
For the Garlic Sausage with Tarragon, 2 1/2 tablespoons of minced garlic, 1 tablespoon minced tarragon leaves, and the juice of 2 meyer lemons was first added. I then started vigorously folding the sausage together with a wooden spoon before adding 1/3 cup of white wine and incorporating that (for all 3 preparations, again about 2 lbs of the base sausage meat was used).
The Ginger Sage Sausage repeated the folding process with 1 1/2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger, 1 tablespoon rubbed sage (dry), 1 tablespoon minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon of red pepper flake (optional).
Finally, the Guajillo Chipotle sausage used about 2 1/2 tablespoons guajillo chile powder, 1 tablespoon chipotle powder, and 1 tablespoon of minced garlic.
The first and third sausage made it in as very good components of dishes to be posted shortly. The Ginger Sage sausage was devoured on it's own for breakfast, and half is being shared with a close friend of the family; totally delicious.
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