Summer Sausage

[Corjack]

I really like summer sausage. Problem is in the US, when you take your deer to process, it is pretty costly, then if you tell them to make ten pounds in to sausage, they throw ten pounds of your meat into a big pile of everyone else's meat. You never know if the other guys deer was hanging in the yard for a week at above freezing temps, or a roadkill somebody brought in. Then if you try to make it yourself, it is a pretty involved undertaking, and a lot of work. A chap I know sent me a recipe that his mom has used for years, and he has as well using deer and elk meat. Nice thing is it can be done in small batches, in your own kitchen . Had half the spices all ready, and one trip to the grocery store got the rest. I have four pounds of ground venison thawing out right now, and am going to make a batch.

IMG_5638.JPG

[Vaughan]

Be very interested to hear how this works out. I've been making moose sausage for the bbq for a while now. Wonderful. I've never tried something like this.

[canalrifle]

I have had good experience getting sausage casings from LEM Products.

[ebrownw2]

Do you add any beef or pork fat or just use ground venison?

[Corjack]

This batch is strait deer burger.

[stokesrj]

I haven’t had much luck with deer processors in Florida but excellent service and results in Wisconsin. They were very careful to make sure only your deer meat was used to make your sausage and the sausage was excellent. But the experiences in Florida prompted me to get all the professional processing tools to do all my own processing now. It is a bit of a bother but well worth it after the learning curve was over. I love summer sausage too, so will keep an eye out for your results.

[Oscar]

I haven’t had much luck with deer processors in Florida but excellent service and results in Wisconsin. They were very careful to make sure only your deer meat was used to make your sausage and the sausage was excellent. But the experiences in Florida prompted me to get all the professional processing tools to do all my own processing now. It is a bit of a bother but well worth it after the learning curve was over. I love summer sausage too, so will keep an eye out for your results.

If you think it hard in Florida try being in Australia! Commercial game processing as you have described is almost impossible under our regulations. Even setting up a cannery like they do in the US for fishermen private catch’s is only just feasible but probably only if you drops a few million down first.

That said we do have a thriving home sausage making industry in Australia hence why many hunters also make their own. Good luck and I’ll be interested in the results.

[Corjack]

I did this batch. My oven evidently is not accurate and I had to put it in for 45 minutes longer. Next time I will do 45 minute at 350 and 45 minutes at 250. I took a roll of it to a family get together to day, and the polished it off in short order. A couple said it had kind of a pepperoni taste to it, and said they liked it that way. You can tell when it is done, as it has a nice pink colour to it.

[deerhunter338mag]

I’ve made a lot of snags over the years and it’s a real lot of work. It helps if you get a bit of a team going. I found with Sambar you need a bit of pork fat and meat as it will become very dry. But it’s one of the best ways to enjoy your kil.

[Vaughan]

I’ve made a lot of snags over the years and it’s a real lot of work. It helps if you get a bit of a team going. I found with Sambar you need a bit of pork fat and meat as it will become very dry. But it’s one of the best ways to enjoy your kil.

I settled on 20% pork belly when making moose sausage or mince for pasta, burgers etc. Sounds like a lot of fat but the richness it provides is worth it. And I follow the "eat less ya fat fuzzy bunny" diet, so don't worry if there is a bit of fat. I'm thinking I need to get a little Bradley smoker.....

[SPEEDY]

This batch is strait deer burger.

It's going to be interesting to see how it turns out I know everyone adds fat to keep it moist, but if you can keep a strait meat sausage most it should have an incredible flavor.

[Corjack]

This batch is strait deer burger.

It's going to be interesting to see how it turns out I know everyone adds fat to keep it moist, but if you can keep a strait meat sausage most it should have an incredible flavor.

It turned out good. Everyone loves it.

[Gun Barrel Ecologist]

Any idea how essential the Morton’s tenderiser is for this recipe?

[secondtry]

Any idea how long this is likely to keep for if refrigerated after cooking ??

A bit of a hard question since it sounds like it gets scoffed too quick to find out

[stokesrj]

I think the Morton's tender quick is pretty essential. It may be hard to find, I went to their site which had a store locator to find it. You can also email them to locate a store that carries it. saltinfo@mortonsalt.com
I made a couple of batch's (4 loafs) of this from elk for our Christmas Holidays. Most of it went quickly but one log got pushed to the back of the meat drawer in the refrigerator unnoticed for a couple of weeks. It was still good but didn't last long after it was discovered by two of my sons. My Daughter in Law also made a batch of it because she liked it at my house.