Andouille sausage is a simple sausage that makes many Cajun recipes so good.  Contrary to what many people think, andouille is not spicy.  If you live near a real Cajun boucherie great!  Buy some from them, it's worth it.  For most people, buying from a Cajun boucherie is not an option and supermarket andouille is the only thing that is available.  If all you can get is supermarket andouille feel free to use it, but know that homemade andouille will make whatever you put it in better.  The picture above is what our andouille looks like after 6½ hours on the smoker. 

8  lbs	pork butt (With the top fat layer trimmed, but don’t get rid of all of it)
1 cup	cold dark red wine (port or cabernet sauvignon work well)
1½ tbl	salt
1 tsp	pink curing salt (Prague powder #1)
2 tbl	fresh fine ground black pepper
1 tbl	thyme leaves
5 tbl	minced garlic (don't go to all the trouble of mincing the garlic yourself, buy it in the produce section already peeled and minced)
32-35 mm	natural hog casings

Trim about half of the fat cap from the outside of meat but leave the rest.  Traditionally andouille was stuffed with small pieces of cut up meat instead of using a grinder. giving andouille a texture that other sausages don't have.  Cutting up pounds of meat is a lot of work, so I use a grinder with the coarsest disk I could find.  It looks like this and does a great job.  The texture is perfect.  Cut the meat into pieces small enough to feed into your grinder.
 

Dissolve the salt and pink curing salt in the wine. Add the pepper, (make sure you grind it fine or when you eat the sausage, the peppercorns can feel like a piece of bone), thyme, and garlic, to the wine and stir well.

Pour the wine and spice mixture into the pork and mix thoroughly.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Stuff the meat and spice mixture into the largest pork or smallest beef casings you can find.

Put the links in the fridge uncovered for at least 2 hours or even better, overnight.

Smoke over pecan, not hickory, at 225° until the internal temp of the sausage reaches 165°.  Don't use too much smoke as the sausage takes a while to cook and it is easy to overpower it with smoke.  I put about half the pecan chips that my smoker can handle when I put the sausage on and never add any more.

Don't let the internal temperature of the andouille go past 170° as it will start to dry out.   After the andouille has been smoked, let the links cool to room temp.  Then put the links on wax paper and put the links in the refrigerator overnight.  When the links are cooled, they can be put in zip top bags or vacuum sealed in bags.  Properly sealed, andouille will keep for a year in the freezer.

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