OT: Venison sausage

[vertacre]

I am looking for people's favorite venison sausage or summer sausage recipes. And would like to know why it is your favorite. Cheese or no? Smoked or no?
Thanks,
Steven

[IronNoggin]

Have to be a tad more specific here.
Our crew has well over 20 recipes for venison sausage, including a few for "summer" sausage.
What varieties? Fresh dinner sausage? Smoked? Huge (3" diameter) or smaller (standard hog casings)?

Most are really good btw...

Wondering...
Nog

[vertacre]

I have not made a great deal of sausage. What deer sausage I made was several years ago. I used the 3" paper-like casings. I've just started again to cure meats. I've been doing bacon from pork butts and loin.

For deer sausage I would like to use natural casings and Prague #1. I am not looking for breakfast sausage.

I am open to all suggestions.
Thanks,
Steven

[DuckHunt]

Since I first tried making it about five years ago, I've been making at least 100 pounds of summer sausage every deer season. Everyone that has tried it loves it. It saves me time processing deer because its either backstrap steaks or summer sausage so I spend less time cutting them up.

I've settled on the LEM Backwoods Summer Sausage seasoning as my go to. It does 25 pounds in a batch and includes the seasoning and cure. I use the mahogany colored LEM 1.5" x 12" fibrous casings. If you buy bulk, you can get 100 of them in four bunches of 25 which matches the seasoning pack. This kit has you use an 80/20 ratio of deer to pork or other fat. I use 20 pounds of ground deer and 5 pounds of ground pork.

I've experimented with some of the other items you mentioned. I've tried their Jalapeno blend. Its ok, not very spicy even if you add additional fresh peppers. I also purchased some high-temp cheese and made one batch with it mixed in. It worked perfectly if you can imagine what that would look like. But, there was a side effect to including cheese. Cheese changes the recipe. The sausage tastes better without the cheese baked in it. If you want cheese, keep it external. Also, a regular batch of summer sausage sliced up in a bowl in my fridge will last a couple weeks if it doesn't get eaten first. The sausage with cheese baked in will turn colors and start growing in less than three days. The shelf life is greatly reduced when cheese is added.

As for smoking, I gave a batch to a friend to smoke. The smokey taste was great, but it takes a long time to cook the sausage on such low temps. Its very easy to overheat them dry them out too much using a smoker. They can also cook unevenly, dryer on one end than the other. The perfect solution is to add smoke to the recipe. I now use the LEM liquid smoke so I get all the smoky flavor applied evenly without drying out my sausage. Its highly concentrated. The 16oz bottle will do 1600 pounds of sausage so measure carefully.

Ya'll got me hungry. Time to crack open that bowl in the fridge.

DuckHunt

[quake]

DuckHunt, how long does it take you to make roughly 100 pounds of summer sausage in a season? I would love to try making some summer sausage one of these days, but it always seems like I'm in such a rush to get everything in the freezer after the processing and grinding. It always feels like a dang time crunch to me so I can get back out to the woods and hunt some more.

[DuckHunt]

DuckHunt, how long does it take you to make roughly 100 pounds of summer sausage in a season?

That's the beauty of it. You don't have to make it the day you process the deer. Its probably better to start with frozen ground deer anyway because a good hard freeze also kills some bacteria types. Though I did shoot a small six point early one afternoon because I thought I could get him in sausage casings before bedtime. I did, but it was a lot of work.

Its a multi-step, and really multi-day process. If you start with ground deer, it has to thaw out. I buy the ground pork fresh at Walmart. Mix everything up and then it is just a matter of filling the casings. I can go from raw (thawed) ingredients to 25 stuffed casings in maybe 90 minutes, 2 hours with beer involved. Then they have to cure in a fridge for 12-24 hours. This pretty much works out to stuff them one day, cook them the next.

The next day, you have to take them out and let them get to room temperature before cooking. That can take an hour. They cook in the oven at its lowest setting (mine will do 170F) for an hour. Then I raise it to 200F for an hour. Then I raise it to 220F and cook them until the center reaches 165F when checked with a meat thermometer. It doesn't hurt to roll them over every hour or two as well. The total time in the oven will be at least 3 hours, maybe 4. Then I just take them out, let them cool for about an hour and put them in the freezer in vacuum bags.

It does take time to complete the process, but its not hard work. I normally pick a couple days after work during the week to make up a batch. I need a few hours on stuffing day and 4-5 hours the next day for cooking and packing. My oven will only hold about 25 one pound sticks, so that is all I make at a time.

DuckHunt

[quake]

DuckHunt, that's a lot of great info and helpful tips. I'm going to try my hand at this very soon! Thank you for taking the time to explain the details! Much appreciated.

[IronNoggin]

We always make our mixes with fresh spices.
Do not actually like the kits - way to much salt, and most did not turn out nearly as well as our made-from-scratch recipes.

In regards to smoking:

... As for smoking, I gave a batch to a friend to smoke. The smokey taste was great, but it takes a long time to cook the sausage on such low temps. Its very easy to overheat them dry them out too much using a smoker. They can also cook unevenly, dryer on one end than the other.

I have a pretty large smoker, and again, we do all of our own.
The trick to sausages is to smoke them on a low, even heat.
Doesn't hurt to change their location in the smoker as required. Trick is LOW heat.

After the smoke flavor is run into the sausages, they are "finished" in a hot water bath that brings the internal temperature up to snuff (152 F).
Then a quick cold bath, and hang for several hours to bloom.

This process is described well here: http://www.dakotahsausagestuffer.com/homemade-sausage-s/1941.htm

Very consistent, moist and plump sausages with this method every single time.

I'll grab a recipe or two next...

Cheers,
Nog

[IronNoggin]

Summer Sausage

14 lbs Ground Vension
7 lbs Ground Pork

2 Cups Ice Water
5 tsp Prague Powder (Cure) # 1
7 tblsp Salt
6 tblsp Demerara Sugar
2 tblspn White Sugar
4 tblsp Black Pepper
4 tblsp Garlic Powder
4 tblspn Chopped Garlic
4 tblsp Onion Powder
3 tblsp Dry Mustard
3 tblsp Paprika
2 tblsp Majoram
1 Bag (100 grams) Mustard Seed

Grind the two meat types and combine. Pour in the mustard seeds while mixing.

Pour the water into a large bowl, and mix the cure (Prague Powder) and spices well into it.
Pour the mixture over the meat, and mix rigorously.

Place sausage mix into a cold fridge and hold for 3 days.
Well mix it twice a day. This allows the meat to cure completely, and the spices to mix well into it.
Generally produces that sought after "tang" into the sausage as well.

Shoot into three inch Summer Sausage casings. Hang for two to 4 hours to dry.

Bring smoker temperature up to ~ 135 degrees, and add chips (Hickory).
Smoke for 2-3 hours at this heat range.

Bump temperature to 150 degrees and smoke another 2 or 3 hours.

Two options at this point:

Can finsih in the smoker but needs to be VERY carefully monitored (I use a double probe PID. Works Extremely Well)
Final temperature bump to ~ 175 and smoke until internal temperature of sausages reaches 152 degrees

Or:

Finish in hot water bath at outlined in previous post.

Cheers,
Nog

[IronNoggin]

Smoked Venison Garlic Sausage

10 lbs. lean elk or venison
10 lbs. fatty pork hind

6 cups Ice Water
2 cups Skim Milk Powder
6 tbsp. Salt
4 tbsp. Demerra Sugar
4.5 level tsp. Prague Powder No. 1
4 tbsp. Ground Black Pepper
5 tblsp. Minced Garlic
3 tblsp. Granulated Garlic
4 heaping tsp. Marjoram
3 tblsp. Paprika
4 tblsp. Parsley Flakes
4 tblspn Onion Powder
2 tblspn Dry Mustard
1 5" x 6" bag Mustard Seed (smaller bulk replacement bag)

Chill all meat and grind through 1/4” or 3/16” grinder plate.
Mix all spices with water well and let sit.
Place all meat into tub and mix well adding mustard seed.
Mix spice/water combination well again, and pour over meat.
Mix well until all the ingredients are evenly distributed.
Run through stuffer and use 35-38mm hog casings for stuffing.
Let sausage dry at room temperature for about an hour after stuffing.

Move to smokehouse preheated to 120 degrees F. and leave dampers wide open.
Sausage will dry more for about another hour or so.

After this period, gradually adjust smoker to 160 degrees F. with dampers open.
Allow product to smoke (Hickory) until the internal temperature reaches 152 degrees F. (CRITICAL!!)
Remove from Smoker, and immediately drown in Ice Water bath to cool completely through.
Hang at room temperature for several hours to "bloom".

Again, can run smoker at 155 degrees until internal temperature reaches ~ 135 or so, then hot water bath finish.

Cheers,
Nog

[IronNoggin]

This next one was adapted from a particularly yummy sausage that was developed for lamb.
It was so good, we decided to fiddle with it a bit and see if we could convert it to deer.
After a couple test runs, we now go with this one. It is excellent!
No smoking, this is a Fresh Sausage - eat or freeze soon after shooting.

Venison Sheep Sausage Recipe

14 pounds ground Venison
6 pounds Fatty Pork

2 Cups Skim Milk Powder (can use other binders here alternatively)
4 tblsp Salt
4 tblsp Basil
4 tblsp Oregano OR 3 tblspn Greek Spice
4 heaping tblsp Chopped Garlic
4 tblsp Lemon Juice
4 tsp Onion Powder
4 cups Fresh Chopped Spinach
32 ounces Feta Cheese w/ liquid
3 Large Red Bell Peppers (finely diced)
2 cups Sun Dried Tomatoes
6 cups Chicken Stock

Mix all but the binder, feta, spinach, tomatoes and peppers in a large bowl.
Pour over meat mixture, and add the balance of the ingredients.
Shoot into standard hog casings.

Eat & ENJOY!

Like I said, we have dozens of recipes.
They do not stay on our list if we don't really like them.

Feel free to make a request, and I may well be able to deliver...

Cheers,
Nog

[quake]

Great recipes Nog, I will try them. Thanks!

[Kegbelly]

I've never made my own but I usually get a few lbs from the processor I use. He does a smoked summer sausage with cheese and jalapeños, boy oh boy is it good!! I keep saying I'm going to give it a try one of these days...

[IronNoggin]

... He does a smoked summer sausage with cheese and jalapeños, boy oh boy is it good!!

The great thing about most recipes is that they are generally a very good "starting point"
To make what you describe, i would simply add chopped jalapenos and heat resistant cheese (available at most suppliers btw) to the summer sausage recipe I posted above. Have a KILLER recipe for smokies with the same. Will post once I find it again...

And yeah, you should try it!
You'll never go back!

Cheers,
Nog

[Kegbelly]

Thanks Nog, I may give your recipe a go one day, it sounds like it's delicious!