Wilson Farm Meats has been doing custom sausage making in Burlington, WI the hands-on way: your meat, your seasoning choices, and a finished product you pick up in person from our shop. There’s no guesswork, no generic spice blends scooped from a bucket, and no mystery about what went into your links. You work with our butchers directly, and the result is sausage that reflects exactly what you wanted.

Whether you raised your own hogs in Walworth County, bought a half-cow split with a neighbor in Racine County, or run a restaurant that needs a consistent house sausage, we have the equipment, the recipes, and the experience to make it happen. This page explains what the process looks like, what to expect when you bring meat in, and why local customers across southeastern Wisconsin keep coming back to us for this service.

What ‘Custom Sausage Making’ Actually Means at Wilson Farm Meats

The phrase gets used loosely, so let’s be specific about what it means here. Custom sausage making at Wilson Farm Meats is an in-shop service. You bring us the meat (or select cuts from our inventory), you tell us what you’re after, and we grind, season, and stuff it into finished sausage in our Burlington facility. Nothing leaves the building and comes back to you as a mystery product.

That distinction matters. A lot of processors hand you a price sheet with three flavor options and call it custom. Our approach starts with a real conversation. What fat-to-lean ratio do you want? Fresh links or smoked? How much heat? Do you want a coarse grind or fine? Those decisions shape the final product, and they’re yours to make.

We also bring our house-made smoking and curing expertise to the table when you want it. If you want a fully smoked kielbasa or a cured andouille, we have the in-house smokers and the curing knowledge to do it properly. If you just want fresh bratwurst with a garlic-herb profile, that works too. The point is that the customization is genuine, not cosmetic.

Curious about how bratwurst compares to other sausage styles before you decide what to order? Our guide on bratwurst vs. sausage differences is a useful starting point.

Sausage Varieties We Can Craft for You

The list of styles we work with is long. Here’s a representative look at what Burlington-area customers order most often:

  • Fresh bratwurst (classic Wisconsin-style, garlic, onion, or specialty blends)
  • Smoked kielbasa (slow-smoked in-house, garlic-forward, great for soups and grilling)
  • Italian sausage (sweet or hot, fennel-seasoned, bulk or linked)
  • Andouille (coarse-ground, spiced, double-smoked)
  • Breakfast sausage (sage and pepper profiles, patties or links)
  • Summer sausage (fermented-style, cured, sliceable)
  • Chorizo (Mexican or Spanish-style depending on your preference)
  • Hunters sausage and snack sticks (popular for deer season, but we make them year-round)
  • Fully custom house blends (you describe it, we work with you to develop the recipe)

Fresh sausage and smoked sausage have different production timelines and different storage needs, so it’s worth knowing which direction you’re going before you bring meat in. Once you’ve got your finished product, proper handling matters a lot. Our tips for keeping meat fresh cover the basics on refrigerating and freezing sausage so nothing goes to waste.

If you’re planning to smoke your finished links at home, getting the internal temperature right is critical. Our bratwurst internal temperature guide has the numbers you need.

How the Custom Sausage Process Works: From Your Meat to Finished Links

Here’s the process, step by step, so you know what to expect before you walk in.

  1. Call ahead or come in to discuss your order. Tell us what you have, how much of it, and what style you’re after. We’ll give you a timeline and let you know if we need anything specific from you (casing preference, smoking vs. fresh, etc.).
  2. Drop off your meat. Bring it trimmed and cold if possible. We accept whole cuts, trimmings, or a mix. We’ll weigh it in and note any quality concerns before we start.
  3. Choose your seasoning profile. We have house-made spice blends developed over years of production, and we can adjust heat, herb levels, and salt to match your taste. Returning customers often have a preferred formula on file.
  4. We grind, mix, and stuff. All production happens in our Burlington shop. We use professional-grade equipment and food-safe casings (natural or collagen, your choice when applicable).
  5. Smoking or curing if applicable. Smoked products go into our in-house smokers. Cured products get the proper rest time. This adds to the production timeline, but it’s what separates a real smoked sausage from one that just has liquid smoke in it.
  6. You pick up your finished product. We’ll contact you when the order is ready. Everything is packaged and labeled for easy identification.

The whole sequence is straightforward, but the details matter. Don’t hesitate to ask questions at drop-off; our staff would rather spend five minutes clarifying your preferences than produce 40 pounds of sausage that isn’t quite what you wanted.

Bringing Your Own Animal? Here’s What to Know

A meaningful share of our custom sausage orders comes from people who raised the animal themselves. If you run hogs in the farm communities around Burlington, keep a small herd near Elkhorn or Whitewater, or partnered with a neighbor to finish a few pigs, we understand that context. You put real work into that animal, and you want the resulting sausage to reflect that.

A few things to understand before you bring in a home-raised animal:

  • Inspection requirements matter. Wisconsin’s meat processing regulations, administered by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), govern how custom-exempt processing works and who can receive the finished product. We operate within those rules, and it’s important that you understand them too. Meat processed under a custom exemption is generally for the owner’s own household use, not for resale. If you have questions about your specific situation, the DATCP website is the right place to start.
  • Have the animal harvested and transported properly. The carcass or cuts should arrive at our shop cold and clean. We’ll let you know our specific requirements when you call to schedule.
  • Plan for yield. Not all of the animal becomes sausage. Depending on what you want (roasts, chops, ground beef, plus sausage from the trimmings), the sausage portion of the job is usually made from specific cuts and trim. Our custom meat processing service can handle the full breakdown if you need it.
  • Discuss fat content upfront. Home-raised animals, especially heritage-breed hogs, often carry more fat than commercial pork. That’s not a problem; it often makes better sausage. But it affects the grind ratio, and we’ll factor it in when we mix your batch.

We also work with beef for sausage production. Summer sausage, snack sticks, and certain smoked links work well with beef or a beef-pork blend. If you’ve got a side of beef you’d like to work into sausage alongside your roasts and steaks, we can talk through the options. Our page on the best pork cuts for smoking gives background on why certain cuts work better than others for smoked products specifically.

Why Burlington-Area Customers Choose Wilson Farm Meats for Custom Sausage

There are a few meat processors in southeastern Wisconsin. Here’s what we hear from customers about why they come to us specifically.

We actually smoke our products in-house. A lot of places describe sausage as “smoked” when it’s really just flavored with smoke additives. We have real smokers running in our Burlington shop, and products that are listed as smoked are smoked. You can taste the difference.

Our seasoning blends are house-made. We don’t buy pre-mixed seasoning packets and dump them in. Our recipes were built and refined here, and we can adjust them to your preference. If you’ve been to our shop before, there’s a good chance we have your flavor notes on file.

We handle small and large batches. A family who raised one pig and a restaurant that needs 200 pounds of house sausage per month are both customers we can serve. The process scales.

You’re talking to butchers, not a call center. When you call Wilson Farm Meats, you’re reaching the people who will actually make your sausage. That matters when you’re trying to describe a specific flavor profile or work through a tricky cut breakdown.

For anyone new to working with a local butcher shop, our guide on what to look for in a quality butcher shop covers the questions worth asking before you commit to a processor.

Serving Farmers, Families, and Food Businesses Across Southeastern Wisconsin

Our Burlington location puts us in a practical geographic position for customers throughout Racine County, Walworth County, and Kenosha County. We see farmers from the rural stretches outside Burlington and East Troy, families from Elkhorn and Delavan who want something better than grocery-store links, and restaurant operators in the greater Milwaukee metro who need a consistent, locally made product they can put on a menu with confidence.

For wholesale and restaurant accounts, custom sausage production is an ongoing relationship, not a one-time transaction. We can work with you to develop a house recipe, establish a production schedule, and provide consistent yield batch to batch. If you’re a chef or food service buyer looking for a local producer in southeastern Wisconsin, reach out and let’s have that conversation in person.

For retail customers and families, even a single batch order of 20 to 30 pounds goes a long way in the freezer. A lot of our customers time their custom orders around late fall, but we take orders throughout the year. There’s no wrong season for a good bratwurst.

If you’re picking your own cuts to bring in or want to see what we carry in the retail case, our page on picking your own cuts from a local meat farm explains how that works at Wilson Farm Meats.

We’re also proud members of the broader network of small-scale meat processors committed to transparent, community-rooted production practices. Organizations like the National Meat Processing Association Network (NMPAN) support independent processors like us in serving local food systems.

Freshness, Storage, and Pickup: What to Expect

Once your order is finished, we’ll reach out to schedule a pickup time. All custom sausage is packaged and ready for either refrigerator storage or freezing, depending on how quickly you plan to use it.

Fresh sausage (unsmoked, uncured) should be refrigerated and used within a few days, or frozen right away. Smoked and cured products have a longer refrigerator life, but freezing is still the right move for anything you’re not planning to use within a week or two.

Vacuum sealing is available for orders where extended freezer storage is the goal. If you’re filling a chest freezer with a full pig’s worth of sausage, that extra layer of protection makes a real difference in quality six months down the road.

For a deeper look at best practices, our guide to keeping meat fresh covers refrigerator times, freezer wrapping methods, and signs that something has been stored too long. It’s worth a read before your first large batch pickup.

We don’t ship or deliver orders. All custom sausage is picked up at our Burlington, WI shop. We’ll give you a heads-up when your order is ready so you can plan accordingly.

Frequently Asked Questions About Custom Sausage Making in Burlington, WI

The questions below come up regularly from new and returning customers. If your question isn’t here, call us directly and we’ll give you a straight answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What cuts of pork or beef work best for custom sausage?

Pork shoulder (Boston butt) is the workhorse of sausage production because it has the right balance of lean meat and fat, typically around 70/30, which gives you a juicy, cohesive link without being greasy. Pork belly adds fat for richer blends. For beef sausage, chuck is the most common choice; it grinds well and holds up to smoking. If you’re working with trimmings from a whole-animal breakdown, we’ll assess the fat-to-lean ratio on arrival and advise you on whether any adjustment is needed before we start grinding.

Can I bring in an animal I raised myself to be processed into sausage?

Yes. We regularly work with customers who raised their own hogs or cattle in Walworth, Racine, and surrounding counties. There are important rules under Wisconsin DATCP regulations governing custom-exempt processing, including restrictions on who can receive the finished product (generally the animal’s owner, not the public). We encourage you to review the Wisconsin DATCP meat inspection guidelines before your first appointment so you understand those requirements. Call us ahead of drop-off and we’ll walk you through what we need from you on the day.

What seasonings or flavor profiles can I choose from?

We maintain a range of house-made seasoning blends built from scratch in our Burlington shop, covering everything from classic Wisconsin bratwurst and smoked kielbasa to Italian, andouille, breakfast sausage, and chorizo profiles. We can adjust heat level, salt, herb intensity, and garlic presence to match your taste. If you have a specific recipe you’ve been using at home and want us to replicate it, bring it in and we’ll do our best to match it. Returning customers often have a preferred formula on file so reorders are consistent.

What is the minimum quantity required for a custom sausage order?

Minimums depend on the style and production method. Fresh sausage batches can often start at smaller quantities than smoked or cured products, which require a fuller smoker load to run efficiently. Call us with your specific situation and we’ll tell you exactly what the minimum is for what you’re after. Batch sizes for most home-use customers run between 20 and 50 pounds of finished product, but we handle both smaller family orders and larger wholesale runs.

How long does the custom sausage process take from drop-off to pickup?

Fresh sausage orders are typically turned around faster than smoked or cured products. A straightforward fresh bratwurst batch may be ready within a few business days. Smoked products require time in the smoker, and cured items like summer sausage need an additional rest period, so those orders can take longer. We’ll give you an estimated turnaround at drop-off. During busy seasons (late fall especially), timelines can extend, so calling ahead to schedule is always a good idea.

Do you make sausage for restaurants and retail accounts in southeastern Wisconsin?

Yes. We work with food service accounts that need a consistent house sausage produced on a regular schedule. If you’re a restaurant, deli, or specialty food retailer in the Burlington, Racine, Kenosha, or Walworth County area looking for a local producer, reach out to discuss your volume needs and a production schedule. Wholesale pricing and recurring orders are something we can talk through in person at the shop.

Custom sausage making in Burlington, WI is a hands-on, in-person service at Wilson Farm Meats, and that’s exactly how it should be. You get real input on the recipe, real smoking and curing done in our shop, and a finished product you can taste the difference in. From a single family batch to a recurring restaurant account, the process is the same: bring your meat, tell us what you want, and we’ll make it right.

Call Wilson Farm Meats to schedule your custom sausage order or stop in at our Burlington location to talk through what you’re looking for. We’re ready to get started.