41 sausages and frankfurters tested
The sausage: that staple vegetable of the Finns and their chief source of carcinogens. Grilling sausages are especially popular in summer, but a true enthusiast will get the briquette barbecue glowing in an autumn storm or the freezing weather of January.
Sausage is an old delicacy, eaten even before the start of our calendar era. It may be thought of as cheap or otherwise second-rate food. Yet sausage is not necessarily among the cheapest foods per kilogram or the poorest meat products. The sausages in this test cost as much as 14,25 € / kg, which would also buy plenty of other meat products. A good sausage at its best is very good indeed, so there is a reason for its price per kilogram. But inexpensive can also be good, as a few of the products in this test show.
There is a grilling sausage for every taste: basic sausages with plenty of flour, with or without seasoning; meatier class A sausages made along similar lines; and then fresh, uncooked sausages. Frankfurters, which are thinner than sausages, are also excellent for grilling, and the test includes some of those too.
I have a feeling that the same sausage can taste quite different at different times. At one point I used to grill juusto-Wilhemi cheese sausages very often. Their flavour seemed to range from delicious to barely satisfactory, even though my grilling methods did not vary all that much. I suspect that the ingredients used at the factory varied, affecting the flavour as well. For that reason, the sausages in this test might also taste different on another occasion. Taste preferences change too, and exactly the same product may taste different some other time. A test like this is always very subjective; what else could it be? But let us not let that get in the way here.
In the end, 41 different sausages and frankfurters made it into the test, so there was enough to eat for quite a while. The sausages weighed approximately 16 kg in total. With just a couple of exceptions, all the products are available in Finnish grocery shops. Travellers should remember that Sweden and Estonia, among other places, have good grilling sausages. Estonia in particular has a good selection of fresh, uncooked sausages. Norway, on the other hand, seems to be a poor country for sausages. At least my earlier experiences of the selection in the north were not convincing.
Fat and salt percentages were not considered in the ratings, and price was also secondary. The score reflects only how the product tastes and how the sausage feels in the mouth. The product information includes the price, price per kilogram, salt and fat percentages, and value-for-money scores, which readers can use when deciding what to buy.
As a meal or part of a meal
A sausage can be a meal on its own, with no accompaniments. That is usually the case when out on a hike and cooking over a campfire, for example. But sausage can also be the main ingredient of a meal, or an accompaniment. Potatoes in many forms go very well with it. Eating sausage with sauerkraut adds a touch of Germany. Langos also makes an excellent accompaniment, although Hungarians eat it on its own. It is worth trying.
Accompaniments can often be cooked on the barbecue too, right through to dessert. Fried potatoes, chips and similar dishes are easy to make. For dessert, grilled bananas, for example, are delicious and ready in a few minutes.
Sausage is at its best straight off the grill, but it can still taste good the next day. Since grilling is usually not an option at work, grilled sausage makes a good packed lunch. It also leaves colleagues puzzled when the smell of barbecued food starts drifting from the microwave.
Mustard matters
A top-quality sausage may not even need mustard, but mustard often adds the finishing touch to its flavour. In a few rare cases, even good mustard makes a sausage worse. Bad mustard can make even a good sausage taste bad, but fortunately there is not much bad mustard on offer. Visitors to Estonia should bring back a few tubes of the local delicacy called Põltsamaa kange sinep. It lives up to its name as a strong mustard, and it does not take much to clear your nose. American mustards, on the other hand, do not seem to be quite to my taste, although they will do if nothing better is available.
On the grill or in the microwave
A basic sausage is already cooked, so you can eat it cold straight from the packet if you wish. Heating it in the microwave makes it taste bad. Bringing out the sausage's aromas takes fire: in practice, a barbecue or a campfire. Some people swear by a gas barbecue, but this test used a briquette barbecue. A briquette barbecue gives sausages and other treats a good flavour, although even it cannot quite match the aromas of a campfire.
The sausages in the test were grilled on a Weber Performer. This is a briquette barbecue with convenient gas ignition for the briquettes. As standard, the ignition gas comes in disposable canisters, but that becomes expensive for a frequent griller. An optional low-pressure regulator lets you use a regular gas cylinder, reducing running costs in the long term. A 10 kg cylinder lasts about a year when grilling all year round. The barbecue itself stands up well to rain and freezing weather, but chimney starters rust through in a couple of years. The 57 cm grilling area is large enough even for a Christmas ham. For a bigger group or a larger meal, one barbecue tends to be too small.
The same briquettes were used throughout the test to make comparison easier. This year's Weber briquettes seem better than last year's: they light faster and reach a higher temperature. Direct heat is used, since sausages cook fairly quickly. Some people like to score their sausages, but I put them on the grate as they are. The skin splitting is a sign of a suitable temperature.
Reviews
All the sausages are shown by default, but you can filter the view by the star rating you want. Click a sausage to read the review of that product. You can like any sausage or review by clicking the heart icon. You can also leave your own assessment of a sausage. At the bottom, you can rate this test itself by clicking a star. If you enjoyed it, feel free to share.