I hit 5000 pounds of sausage made in a year and I think that's a bad sign

Everyone talks about high output like it's a good thing, but hitting that number made me stop and think. It means we're pushing volume over craft, just cranking out the same basic links day after day. I remember my first year, I made maybe 800 pounds total, but each batch had something new, like a test run with venison and juniper. Now it's just bulk pork shoulder and premixed seasoning. Has anyone else felt like they lost the art when the scale got too big?

3 comments

3 Comments

oscarkelly2mo ago

The real bad sign is when you stop naming them. My best batch ever was just called "Tuesday Pork" in my notebook because I was too busy to get clever. You start forgetting which tweak made the breakfast links snap just right, and then you're just following a sheet of paper instead of your gut. That's when the craft part is truly gone, when the recipe matters more than the memory of making it.

richard_mason2mo ago

You made two and a half tons of sausage and only now you're worried?

kevin_sullivan1mo ago

Yeah, my buddy who runs a small brewery had that exact moment. He got a big contract with a grocery chain and spent six months just making tank after tank of the same IPA. He said one day he looked at the schedule and realized he hadn't tasted a test batch in months, just checked numbers against a spec sheet. The money was good but he felt like a machine operator, not a brewer. He ended up dropping the contract to get back to small batches, even though it meant less cash.