We decided the next hog we butcher we are canning all of our sausage too due to so many power outages here anymore. I had some in the freezer and gave some of it to my mother and she canned it and it is great! She just heats up the sausage in a skillet and uses the grease in the jar to make gravy off of. Seems very simple to can also if you do it in small quantities.
She makes her patties and she puts it in the oven on a cookie sheet until its cooked and browned. While its hot she packs it in her hot jars then pours the hot grease from cooking it on the cookie sheet over the sausage in the jars. She covers it about halfway with grease, sometimes you may have to have some extra lard melted and ready to go if your sausage isn't too fatty. Then she puts hot lids on and processes it 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts at 11 pounds of pressure in her pressure canner. When she opens it to eat, she heats it up in a skillet and makes gravy from the grease in the jar. Now the "old folks" canned it the same way basically, but instead of using a pressure canner and processing it, they would just flip the jars upside down and the grease will solidify and "seal" the jar. They would leave the jars upside down until used. I don't recommend this way, but thought it was very interesting.
Ah so you get the mixes rather than use a recipe? I thought about doing that. Yes, I have a grinder with the stuff attachments. I catch meat on sale and grind it into ground beef or pork, whatever, and make sausage. So far the only sausage I've made is from a recipe that is supposed to be a Jimmy Dean knock-off. It isn't but it's good enough when I double with that recipe calls for.
