Sizzling sausages! The largest ever Cumberland sausage has been made and cooked in a small Cumbrian village.
The rather bizarre world record involved more than just simply making a large sausage – it proved an engineering feat for a local precision machining company.
Handmark Engineering, based in Broughton-in-Furness, were contacted by farmer Gary McClure who asked them to assist in the world record attempt. To qualify for the record he not only had to create a whopping sausage, it also had to be cooked.
This is where Handmark stepped in and designed a device large enough to hold the ginormous Cumberland sausage and cook it on a barbecue.
The farmer was attempting to break the world record for the largest Cumberland sausage which stood at a diameter of 1.5m. Mr McClure smashed that and produced a 3.5m wide Cumberland sausage weighing 135kg. It took a small team nine hours to hand stuff the sausage with 200kg of locally-reared pork and it needed 12 people to lift the sausage and its griddle to cook it.
The record would not have been possible without the engineering skills of Handmark. When Handmark were approached by Mr McClure, engineering manager Carl Knowles took on the challenge and set about fabricating steel to form the 3.5m rim of the griddle. A wire mesh was then welded on to form the base and handles added for lifting and turning.
Mr Knowles said: “It was a different little project for us and the guys on the shopfloor had a few smiles and jokes about it. We had to pull out all the stops to get it done in time but I’m pleased we were able to play our part in getting the record.”
Mr McClure was attempting to beat the record in order to appear on a Channel 5 TV series ‘Great Northern Cookbook’, which will be broadcast in November.