Homemade Italian Sausage

My parents say they can't find any good Italian sausage where they live, so each time I go down for a visit I always make it a point to pick up some good sausage and take it down to them.  I don't get to visit too often, so I thought it might be a good idea to develop a good recipe for homemade Italian sausage that they could make on their own whenever they have a taste for some.  I've been perusing various websites for ideas on the spices to use.  This page has several sausage recipes and looked like a good place to start.  Since they won't need to make a lot of sausage at a time, I made a spice mix that can be added at a rate of 15 grams per pound of pork shoulder before grinding.  The mix I've started with is...

115 grams kosher salt
40 grams fennel seed
40 grams ground black pepper
8 grams smoked paprika
5 grams ground coriander
5 grams red pepper flakes
7 grams granulated garlic
8 grams sugar
5 grams caraway seed
4 grams MSG
1 gram dried oregano

I bought a boneless pork shoulder from Whole Foods, which true to form was VERY expensive ($4.99/lb)  The 4 pound shoulder was cut in to 1/2" cubes, and mixed with 60 grams of the spice mix and 6 oz red wine (I used shiraz in this case).  I tried a little microwave trick I learned while researching a pizza sauce recipe, it involves combining the herbs and spices with the liquid, then micrwaving it at low power for a few minutes.  This process intensifies the flavors if done properly, but I added way too much liquid.  It is supposed to be a paste of spices but was more of a soup.  Next time I'll just try toasting them instead.

Once the pork had time to chill down in the fridge for a few hours I set up the grinder attachment on the Kitchenaid with the coarse plate installed.  The dice size of 1/2" worked out great, the grinder screw was able to pull the pork through without requiring any extra help.  One thing I will change for the next try is to put the liquid in AFTER the first grind and let is absorb in to the meat.  The cubes of meat just got wet with a lot of the liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl, this cause liquid to shoot out the front of the grinder as the pork went through.  Next time I'll wait until after the first grind at least so the meat can absorb it all.  The pork was put through the a second time to get a finer grind.  I tried to use the medium plate at first, but things were going through so slowly that I changed it back to the coarse grate.  This time I did need to use the push rod to keep the meat going down to the screw.  Once ground, I put the sausage in the fridge to allow some of the moisture to evaporate out for a few hours then packed it in vacuum pouches.

I fried up a few pieces of the sausage a few hours later just to try it out.  It was good, better than most of what I've found in grocery stores, but didn't have the intensity of flavor I'd like.  It may just need more time for the flavors to marry, could be because some of the spices I used were not as fresh as they should have been and would probably benefit from toasting the spices before using them next time.  I'll try some again tonight to see if a day to 'cure' has improved the flavor.