Venison Sausages

[Butterbean]

Redzed, its deer season now and I thought I'd give your smoked venison recipe a try. Though the spice blend is much different than what is normally used in my area I found the sausage really nice and as you say flavorful. I used a combination of wild pig and venison. After thawing the meat I noticed the wild hog's fat was not as firm as typical pig fat then I remembered it had been feasting on peanuts prior its demise and I wish I had used regular pork. Don't think it made a huge effect but if looking to improve I would have omitted this.

Anyhow, its a really good sausage and thanks for sharing the recipe as I will be making this again.

[Bob K]

Looks good! Always enjoy your knives and boards also.

[redzed]

Looks tasty. I'm glad you liked the recipe. I have some fresh white tail meat and will be making this sausage for Christmas. There seems to be a belief among hunters who make sausage that anything with venison has to be heavily spiced. I also used to follow that theory. This recipe shows that you can make a lightly spiced yet flavourful sausage that just about everyone will like.

Interesting what you said about fat from pigs fed with peanuts. Can you describe it a bit more?

[fatboyz]

Need to make my pics smaller. I posted the recipe in the garlic sausage thread today.

[Butterbean]

Looks tasty. I'm glad you liked the recipe. I have some fresh white tail meat and will be making this sausage for Christmas. There seems to be a belief among hunters who make sausage that anything with venison has to be heavily spiced. I also used to follow that theory. This recipe shows that you can make a lightly spiced yet flavourful sausage that just about everyone will like.

Interesting what you said about fat from pigs fed with peanuts. Can you describe it a bit more?

We cooked this sausage with cabbage the other day and it was wonderful. The smokiness and the spices lent a pleasant taste and aroma to the cabbage.

I can't elaborate much on your peanut question other than to say peanut fattened pigs will have a softer fat due to some biochemical thing. Its not that big of a deal with most things but would become problematic when you are making fermented sausages and some advise not to use it for that. I'll look for a source for this and post if I can find it.

[Butterbean]

Redzed, I was unable to find the paper I thought I'd bookmarked on this where it dealt solely with meat processing but I did find this study which shows how pigs when fed 10% additional regular field peanuts in their ration had double the polyunsaturated fat content in their carcasses. I'm no expert on fat by any stretch but I think this is what the paper was referring to. I think the polyunsaturated fat is a much softer fat and has a much lower melting point which would make for low quality backfat I would think. The fat on the carcass of the feral pig I cleaned was fatty but a lot of the fat was silky and very pliable. Almost jelly-like. Not saying it was all like this but it was noticeable.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1474012

[Scogar]

So I made this recipe...70 lbs when you count the water. The venison was cut into mostly Class I, my buddy (unknown to me at the time) disposed of any connective tissues except for about 5 or 6 hocks. The pork was conformed as best as possible to the classes. All pork was obtained by shoulder and butt from Kroger. The total venison weight was 31.95 pounds to 34.25 pounds of pork, or a ratio of about 1:1 (more precisely 1.1:1.0).

The venison was ground three times, each time reducing grind diameter due to the connective tissue in the hocks. The pork was ground twice. All meats were final ground through the 3/16-inch plate. Spices and water were blended and added a bit at a time so as to absorb water. Total sausage weight being about 30 kg required 3 liters of water, so blending was slow. No water leaked from blended sausage. All was stuffed into kielbasa sized natural casings and allowed to sit in refrigerator overnight. The next day all sausage eventually went on the smoker over a blend of oak, hickory, and cherry. The temps were kept to about 90° F for three hours with heavy smoke. All smoked sausage was combined in a pot and steeped at 170° F bath temp for about 30 minutes which cooked sausage. Everything was dumped into ice water to cool, pulled from this bath and allowed to further cool in a refrigerator overnight.

Delicious!!!


[Pic Issue- Pics to Follow]

[Butterbean]

Looks terrific!

[Scogar]

[redzed]

I made 17kg of this sausage just before Christmas. Seasoning was the same as posted above, except that I added 1g/kg of marjoram. It was composed of 3.7kg class 1 venison (white tail); 4kg class 1 pork (butt and picnic); 7.3 class 2 pork (loin, butt, picnic, about 40% fat); and 2kg class 3 venison. Class 1 ground with 12mm plate, class 2 with 7mm, and class 3 twice with 3mm. Smoked for 2 hours at 135F and one hour at 150F, poached to a 155 internal temp and chilled with water. The next day smoked for two hours at 128F and hung in air to chill, then two days drying in garage 43 - 50F.

[Scogar]

That looks awesome Redzed

[Butterbean]

Sounds good. I think I'll give this one a try too. I told my son he needed to stop hunting horns and start thinning the herd. You gotta be careful what you wish for because he did just that and even though he did all the skinning and dressing himself I was left with the final butchering and he's kept me busy and I have two freezers completely full. Oh, and in the process he finally got the big buck he's hunted all season. He was a good one and is now at the taxidermist.

[Scogar]

I am in a quandry as well. I made the decision to get the All American Canner so I no longer have to freeze broth. That will free up space. It will also enable me to can the soups, stews, chili, and gumbos that I make in Army size quantities so I don't have so many leftovers. I have always hesitated buying one because I'm not a proponent of canned veggies. But seeing your (Butterbean's) jarred broth that was the catalyst - so thanks. Just waiting for a little bleed down of the VISA before I pull the trigger on this major purchase.

But right now I have three weeks of archery season left and only enough freezer room for an envelope of seeds. Argggghhh. Not sure what I'll do, if I see a lot of movement I just may try for another doe. Otherwise I think it is high time to rethink what I get, how I store it, etc. And I still have 35 pounds of my version of this sausage (but I'm not complaining)

[Butterbean]

The All American canner is on my wish list. That's a good canner. You'll love pressure canning. Its amazing what you can do with a canner if you employ some creativity and mix what you know about making sausage with canning meat. I have shelves filled with "corned venison" and "city ham" which were all made in the canner. This type food comes in really handy. Once, using retort bags, I even served BBQ pork spare ribs to our troops in southern Afghanistan who had been forced to eat a porkless diet due to political correctness. This was much appreciated. The sky is the limit with canning.