What she uses
One pound of fresh pork sausage is the whole base of it, and the gravy gets built in the same pan (one pound of sausage). For thickening she uses all-purpose flour, about a fourth of a cup altogether, cooked in the sausage grease with a little added oil; hers is vegetable oil, and she says a little butter or olive oil would work just as well (the flour and the oil).
The milk is whole milk. She says it makes the gravy creamier, and that if you are using skim or two percent you should add a little more flour to thicken it up (whole milk, or more flour). The only seasonings she measures are one teaspoon of black pepper and about a half teaspoon of salt, and those go in after the flour has cooked (salt and black pepper).
Frying the sausage and the flour
She fries the pound of sausage first, and once it is frying good she chops it into little bits and pieces so it is evenly distributed through the gravy and covers the biscuits well (chopping the sausage small). She does not give a frying time for the sausage on camera; she goes by getting it the way she wants it, then adds a little more oil and lets that get hot enough to fry the flour in (more oil for the flour).
The flour goes into that grease and oil and gets mixed in (the flour goes in). This is the part the whole recipe turns on, in her words: you have got to fry that flour a little bit, about two to three minutes, to get that taste of the flour out (why the flour has to fry). It takes about two to three minutes to come to a light golden brown (cooking it to light golden brown).
Once it has the color she wants and it is sizzling pretty good, it sits and cooks about another minute or two. Her only caution at that point is not to let it burn (do not let it burn).
Adding the milk
The black pepper and salt go in at this point, and she keeps the sausage pushed over to the side of the pan while she starts pouring milk into the flour (seasoning, then the milk). Then the sausage eases back over into the mixture and it starts boiling, with more milk added as it goes; altogether, she says, you wind up adding probably about three and a half cups of milk to one pound of sausage (about three and a half cups).
From there it thickens faster than you think, and her one warning is not to walk off and leave it, because it will scorch real fast. It has to be kept stirred (do not walk off and leave it).
How much it makes, and what can go wrong
As she describes it, that pan is enough gravy to serve about six people if all you were having was gravy and biscuits, and she spoons it over fresh baked biscuits (how far it goes).
The three things she warns about are all timing. Flour that has not fried long enough leaves that raw flour taste in the gravy, which is the reason she gives the two to three minutes (the flour taste she is chasing out). Flour left too long past the color you want will burn (watching the color). And milk left unstirred once it is in the pan scorches quickly (keeping it stirred). If the gravy is thinner than you want because you used skim or two percent, her fix is a little more flour (thinner milk needs more flour).