Venison Summer Sausage

[Dustoff35]

Sunday afternoon, I brought about 30-35 lbs of venison from last season over to  Dan's place.  The plan was to make about 15 lbs of venison Summer Sausage and turn the remainder into breakfast sausage.  I desperately need to make room in the freezer as all three of my kids want to harvest deer this year.  This is the first time either Dan or I attempted to make summer sausage.  Here is how it went: 

[Dustoff35]

We used a store-bought summer sausage seasoning kit and fibrous casings that I picked up at Field & Stream a while back.  Perhaps next time, we will give Nate's homemade summer sausage recipe a run.  Maybe throw in some cheddar cheese and jalapeno peppers from the garden. 

Dan has this great old butcher-shop grinder that was produced by Globe Industries back in the 1950's.  It weighs well over 50lbs and was rebuilt over the summer, hence the Ohio State / Kentucky paint scheme.   

[Dustoff35]

Since venison is very lean, we added pork fat into the breakfast sausage at a 25% / 75%  fat to venison ratio.  We made a total of 25 lbs of breakfast sausage.  5 lbs of it was from a package mix, the remaining 20lbs was a recipe Dan uses when making pork breakfast sausage.

[Dustoff35]

During a break in the action, we grilled up some venison tenderloin for an afternoon snack.  Seasoned with a little salt and black pepper, it was delicious.  The wives and kids loved it too.

[Dustoff35]

We then placed a sausage stuffing tube onto the grinder and began to fill the casings with summer sausage.  No pics of that, its definitely a two-man job.  one to stuff meat into the hopper of the grinder and one to guide the casing off of the stuffing tube.  We ended up with four 3+ pound sausages and a smaller one. 

[KensAuto]

Yuuummmmy.

[Dustoff35]

OK, here is the final product.  After 3 days in the refridgerator, the saltiness and excess moisture dissipated.  It really turned out great.