Sausages, sausages

We recently had the butcher out and I wanted to make my own sausages. Flavoured with REAL produce, and less wheat. I had no idea what I was doing so google became my friend, also lots of research through cookbooks, but I was having trouble finding exactly what I wanted; A recipe for (Aussie) BBQ Beef Sausages, just plain, nothing fancy. I never did find that elusive recipe. Mum and I spent the night before we dressed the animals grinding, chopping and mixing some fillers for 4 varieties of snags. Then it came time to mix them and pack the sausage machine, "that mix is too dry" says the butcher. Well what am I meant to do?! I have no experience, no idea what needs to happen, "just add some water". I could do that. I didn't fill the sausage casings, or tie the sausages, but I paid close attention and next time I will give it a red hot go.

After cooking the sausages I am not happy with just adding water, it makes them spit and they dry out quite a bit while you cook them. My brain is already working on a solution, like tomato juice, which I know works, as one of the recipes called for it anyway, we added extra tomato juice instead of water. That sausage is brilliant.

I only have two recipes with me today, I will add the others at some stage.

Basic Snags
1kg Beef(ground of course)
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1/2 medium brown onion, finely chopped
2 small garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
sausage casings

Lamb Sausages
2 1/2 kg ground lamb
6 sprigs fresh mint
2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
Salt
Pepper
3Tablespoon olive oil
3Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
2Tablespoon Dry White Wine
2T fresh lemon juice + small amount of zest
* As it is a lot of work to get the lamb ready I did it after the butcher left, about an hour to get 1 kg of meat. I altered the amounts in the recipe as needed with exception for the mint, which I only used 1 teaspoon and the Wine, which I drank instead. I didn't have a sausage machine so we made patties/burgers. Soak the meat in the ACV and Lemon juice, they are acidic and break down the proteins giving you a nicely textured patty, we ground it(in the food processor) after soaking for 4 hours. I made enough (small) patties to give us two and a half meals of 2 patties each. The whole family loved it and we are considering giving up some chops next time so that we can make actual sausages!