Before you start, make sure that your meat is super cold, as in almost frozen. It would be a good idea to place it in the freezer (or in the fridge, set over a bowl of ice) for a half hour to an hour prior to starting, just to give it that little bit of extra chill.
In a large mixing bowl, add your meat along with the rest of the ingredients and mix until just incorporated, no more. If your meat is slightly frozen, simply cut it into cubes and mix it with the rest of the ingredients. Since we’ll be throwing this in the meat grinder, it won’t really matter.
Work the meat into the meat grinder (if you’re using a KitchenAid Stand Mixer equipped with the meat grinder attachment, set speed to 4); when the meat is completely ground, place the finished mixture in the fridge while you prep the sausage stuffer.
Slide the hog casing onto the sausage stuffing tube and leave about 5 to 6 inches hanging at the end. You will need approximately 6 inches of casing per link, so about 9 feet total for this recipe.
Hold the casing loosely at the end of the stuffing tube with one hand and let the sausage feed into the casing as you push the meat down the feeding tunnel with your other hand.
The meat will take care of pulling the casing off of the tube. All you need to help shape it a little bit and push back any air bubbles that may form.
Once all the meat has been pushed through, take your sausage off of the stuffing tube and start twisting this giant sausage into links, twisting in opposite directions between links to keep them from coming undone as you twist the next one. It really helps to work in sections, too, so twist right smack in the middle, then again in the middle of each newly formed section. This will leave you with 4 oversized links, which will make it easier for you to form sausages of equal length. Form 3 or 4 links out of each section, which will yield a total of 12 to 16 sausages.
Once all your links are formed, tie a knot at both ends of the chain, as close to the meat as possible.
Place the finished sausage in the fridge, uncovered, to let it dry a bit (I like to let mine dry overnight) then cut it into individual links.