Venison Sausage Recipes

VENISON SAUSAGES WITH BAY AND GARLIC

Steps:

• Chop meat and fat into chunks that will for into your grinder. (Optional expert step: Mix the salt and curing salt - if using - with just the meat, grind very coarsely -- 10 mm or 12 mm plate -- and refrigerate overnight. If you don't have such a large plate, cut the meat a little finer and do the same thing. This will give you a tighter bind in the finished sausage, which is especially important, as this is a coarsely ground sausage.)
• Take out some hog casings and set in a bowl of warm water.
• When you are ready to grind, mix the meat and fat with all the herbs and spices. If you are using the dry milk powder, mix that in, too. I use it when I slow-smoke sausages; it helps them retain moisture and shrink less after they come out of the smoker. Make sure the meat and fat are 37°F or colder by putting the mixture in the freezer for an hour or so. Put the wine in the fridge.
• Grind through your meat grinder (you can use a food processor in a pinch, but you will not get a very good texture) using the coarse die (6 mm or 7 mm).
• Make sure your sausage is very cold, between 28°F and 32°F. When it's cold enough, take it out of the freezer and add the wine and water. Mix the sausage thoroughly either using a Kitchenaid on low for 60 to 90 seconds or with your (very clean) hands for 2 minutes. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly.
• Stuff the sausage into the casings. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting and spinning it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, in the other direction; this helps prevent them from unwinding. (Here's a quick video on making the links) Or you could tie them off with butcher's string. Make sure you pierce the links wherever there are air pockets; I use a needle sterilized in the flames of my stovetop. Gently squeeze the links to remove all air pockets.
• Hang the sausages in a cool place for up to a day (ideally hanging in a fridge, but even an hour at room temperature helps a lot). Once they have dried a bit, put in the fridge until needed. They will keep for at least a week refrigerated. If you are freezing the sausages, wait a day before doing so. This will tighten up the sausages and help them keep their shape in the deep-freeze.

BULK VENISON BREAKFAST SAUSAGE

Steps:

• In a very large bowl or plastic tub, sprinkle the venison and pork with the curing mixture, pepper, pepper flakes, sugar, and sage. Mix very well to evenly incorporate everything. When working with large quantities of sausage, cook a small piece to make sure the seasoning is exactly how you like it.
• Divide into 1 pound portions and freeze.

VENISON BREAKFAST SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Combine the venison, bacon, sage, ginger, pepper, and onion salt in a large bowl; mix well. Shape into 12 patties using about 1/4 cup of mixture per patty. Patties can either be pan-fried or frozen for later use.

HOT ITALIAN SAUSAGE "VENISON"

Steps:

• Mix meats together.
• In a seperate container mix dry ingredients thoroughly.
• Combine meat and spices, mix thoroughly.
• Add water.
• Can be used right away, but for best results, put it into an air tight container and set in refrigerator for 24 hours.
• Can be stuffed into Medium Casings or used in bulk form depending on your recipe.

HOMEMADE VENISON SAUSAGE RECIPE

Steps:

• Dice meat into 1″ cubes, running through a grinder with a 4 mm plate.
• Return ground meat to fridge.
• Combine all spices together into a large bowl, ensuring that salt fully dissolves.
• Evenly mix the seasonings with the ground meat by hand.
• This should take 5 minutes if done by hand.
• Run your spiced sausage through the meat grinder on the 4mm plate, then transfer the grounded blend to a sausage stuffer.
• Make traditional sausage links and store the finished pile overnight in the fridge, wrapped in paper toweling.
• Hanging the meat allows the meat to better absorb the spices as it dries out while the papers contribute to the process by slowly drawing out moisture through the casings.
• When you wish to cook, prep your grill with some oak or walnut wood chips and configure things for cooking with indirect heat.
• Place sausages in a lightly oiled tray and cook at 320°F for half an hour, shaking the tray every 10 minutes.

VENISON SAUSAGE

Steps:

• In a large metal bowl, mix sugar, mustard seed, garlic, salt, and pepper with pork and venison. When ingredients are well mixed, grind the meat mixture in a meat grinder. Put the ground meat into a mechanical sausage stuffer. Be sure to push all of the air out of stuffer so there are no air pockets in the sausages. Fill pork casing with ground meat. When casing is filled entirely, find the center of the sausage and fold and pinch in 1/2 on a table. Pinch and twist into sausage links 2 at a time, pulling the "leg" of the sausage through the center each time a twist is made.
• Hang sausage in a smoke house or put sausage in a smoker for approximately 8 to 12 hours.

SMOKED VENISON SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Cut the venison and pork belly into grinderappropriate sized pieces. Place on a tray and in the freezer for 15-20 minutes while you set up the grinder.
• Assemble the grinder with a 3/8" plate to start and grind the meat once through the 3/8" plate.
• Gently combine the Butter Garlic Sausage Seasoning with the once ground meat. Place back in the fridge while you reset the grinder.
• Replace the grinder plate with a 3/16" plate and grind seasoned meat through once. 
• Add the binder flour and pink salt to the meat block and combine well with your hands or a meat mixer.
• Add water and mix until protein extraction starts. Prep sausage stuffer with a ¾" horn. Load stuffer with meat block, avoiding any air pockets when loading.
• Thread sausage casings onto horn and gently begin stuffing into casings, leaving just enough give to twist them. 
• Link off sausages and use a sausage pricker or sharop knife to remove any air pockets. 
• Place on a rack lined sheet tray and place in the fridge overnight to dry and to develop flavors.
• Preheat smoker to 130 degrees F. Hang sausages on smoke sticks, allowing at least 2" between sausages. Place in the smoker for 30 minutes.
• Place ¼ pan of moistened sawdust on the heating element and increase the house temperature to 150 degrees. Smoke for 45 minutes.
• Remove the sawdust and increase the house temperature to 170 degrees and cook for 2-3 hours, or until an internal temperature of the sausage reaches 155 degrees F. 
• Take the sausages out of the smokehouse and place in an ice bath for 15-20 minutes to rapidly chill.
• Store in vacuum packed bags for future use or grill up right away and enjoy!

VENISON SUMMER SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Cut the meat and fat into chunks that will fit into your grinder. Trim as much sinew and silverskin as you can. Put the fat into a container in the fridge. Mix the dextrose, salt and curing salt with the meats and put it in the fridge overnight. This helps develop myosin, which will give you a tighter bind when you stuff the links later.
• The next day, put your grinding equipment - blade, coarse and fine die, etc. - in the freezer. Mix the ginger, cloves and half of the remaining spices with the meat and fat. Put the mixture into the freezer and let everything chill down until it hits about 30°F or so. It won't freeze solid because of the salt. Normally, this takes about 90 minutes. While you're waiting, soak about 15 feet of hog casings in a bowl of warm water, and put the malt vinegar in the fridge.
• When the meat and fat are cold, take them out and grind through the coarse die of the grinder; I use a 10 mm plate. Test the temperature of the mixture, and if it's 35°F or colder, go ahead and grind it all again through a fine die, like a 4.5 mm. If it's warmer than 35°F, put the mix back in the freezer to chill. This might take an hour or so if you've let the meat warm up too much. Use the time to clean up, and to dissolve your starter culture in the distilled water.
• Once the sausage has been ground twice, test the temperature again to make sure it's 35°F or colder. I prefer to chill the mix down to 28°F to 32°F for this next stage. Chill the mix and when it's cold enough, take it out and add the remaining spices, the vinegar and the water-starter culture mixture. Now, mix and knead this all up in a big bin or bowl with your (very clean) hands for a solid 2 minutes-your hands will ache with cold, which is good. You want everything to almost emulsify.
• Stuff the sausage into hog casings rather loosely. For this sausage, you want long links. First cut lengths of casing about 2 feet long. Stuff each with a little more than 1 foot's worth of sausage, leaving with plenty of extra casing on either side. Do this with all the sausage before moving on.
• When you're ready, gently compress the long links. Keep an eye out for air pockets. Use a sterile needle or sausage pricker (set it aglow in your stovetop flame) to puncture the casing over all the air pockets. Gently compress the links together to squeeze out the air pockets; this takes practice. Tie the ends of the casing together in a double or triple knot.
• Hang the links from a clothes rack or somesuch. I use "S" rings you buy from the hardware store to hang them from the clothes rack rods. Now you need to ferment your links, keeping them warm and moist. I do this by putting a humidifier under the hanging sausages and then tenting the whole shebang with big garbage bags that I've sliced open on one end. I also use a water sprayer to spritz my sausages a couple times a day. Doing this prevents the casings from hardening. Keep your sausages hanging at room temperature (65 to 80°F) at about 85 percent humidity for three days.
• Move the sausages to your smoker and smoke them over very low heat for up to 4 hours of continuous smoke. It is vitally important that you do not cook your links here, so put ice in the water tray of the smoker and smoke on a cold day or in the early morning. Don't let the smoker rise above 100°F at all. If it gets too hot, open the door of the smoker or just take the links out.
• Now you need to dry your sausages and turn them into salami. Hang them in a place that is about 50°F to 60°F with about 80 to 90 percent humidity. In most cases you will need to put a humidifier under your links. I also spritz them with water once a day for the first 2 weeks. After the first week of hanging, drop the humidity to 70 to 80 percent. On the third week drop it again to 65 to 70 percent and hold it there until a total of 4 to 8 weeks has elapsed since the salami went into the chamber.
• You now have boerenmetworst. To store long-term, vacuum seal them individually and keep in the fridge. They will last indefinitely this way, and the vacuum sealing will keep them from becoming rock hard. You can also freeze them.