Meat content
The quality and price of a sausage is largely determined by the meat content
- A pork sausage must contain at least 42% pork meat
- An economy sausage will contain between 30% and 40% meat (doesn’t have to be all pork meat)
- A better quality butchers style sausage tends to be 60-70% meat
- Premium Sausages have 75% or more meat content, some contain 85%+ meat content with provenance e.g. named breed, outdoor reared
- A very high meat content can sometimes make a sausage too dense and dry
Size guide
- Fours (jumbo): 4 to the lb (133g
- Sixes: 6 to the lb (76g) most used for premium sausages
- Eights: 8 to the lb (57g) most popular size
- Twelves: 12 to the lb (38g)
- Chipolatas: 16 to the lb (28g)
- Cocktail: 32 to the lb (14g)
Flavours
- Lincolnshire: A distinctive variety of pork sausage commonly dominated by the herb sage
- Cumberland: The meat is pork and seasonings are prepared from a variety of herbs and spices but the flavour palette is commonly dominated by black and white pepper