Venison Sausage

Venison is very lean, with virtually no fat marbled in the meat.  If present, the fat is external.  All external fat should be removed because venison fat solidifies unless the food is eaten very hot, hence venison fat is not very palatable.  Pork fat is usually added to the venison meat to add fat.  You can get pork trimmings from your local butcher.  I like to make 60/40 venison sausage, which means you mix 60% venison with 40% pork fat trimmings.

Ingredients

  • 6 lb venison, cubed
  • 4 lb pork trimmings, cubed
  • sage, 3 tbs
  • cajun seasoning mix (homemade, Chachere's or Zatarain's),  3 tbs
  • onion powder, 2 tbs
  • garlic powder, 1 tbs
  • black pepper, 1 tbs
  • sugar, 1/2 tbs
  • cayenne pepper, 1/2 tbs
  • basil, 1 tsp
  • thyme, 1 tsp
  • savory, 1 tsp
  • mace, 1 tsp

Grinding Meat

  • Cube  the venison and pork trimming to a size that you can feed into your grinder.
  • Only grind chilled meat.
  • Mix the cubed meat with all the seasonings.
  • Grind the meat through a coarse grinder plate (3/8 inch).
Smoked Sausage
  • Prepare the grinder with a finer grinder plate (3/16 inch) and sausage stuffing extension.
  • Soak sausage casing in water, and wash.
  • Load casing onto sausage stuffing extension.
  • Load meat into grinder hopper and stuff sausage into about 8-inch long links.
  • Smoke the sausage if you have a smoker available.  Hang the sausage so they do not touch, and smoke to the desired level.
  • I smoke the sausage in a electric smoker, with a piece of oak, hickory or mesquite laid on the electrical element.  It really gets too hot to be a good sausage smoker, so I turn it off before it gets so hat that it starts cooking the sausage.  This really is not a good set-up to slow smoke the sausage, so my smoked sausage is nothing to brag about.  But, I like!
  • If you do not have smoker, you can freeze the sausage and use as a fresh sausage.
  • Nitrite: If you want to be safe and make sure your sausage does not spoil during smoking, add nitrite to the receipe.  You can purchase nitrite from most butchers that sell sausage making supplies.  Add it at the rate recommended on the label, or ask the butcher how much they add.
Breakfast Sausage
    Links
  • Grind the meat through a smaller plate (3/16 inch).
  • You can make links by passing the meat through the sausage stuffing extension without casing.  The sausage will come out as a small diameter tube.  Catch the tube, and lay lengths on a flat surface.  Cut the tube into about 3-inch long links.  Lay the links on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer.  Once the links are frozen, you can put them in ziploc freezer bags and place back in the freezer.  Take out what you need when you want to cook.

    •  

     

    Patties

  • Grind the meat through a smaller plate (3/16 inch).
  • You can make patties by stuffing the sausage into 2-inch diameter plastic casings.  Tie the casing off in about 6-inch lengths.  Take out a tube when you want to cook.
  • You can make patties, by chilling the stuffed 2-inch diameter casing, then cut them into patties.  Lay the patties on wax paper on a cookie sheet, and place in the freezer. Once the patties are frozen, you can put them in ziploc freezer bags and place them back in the freezer.  Take out what you need when you want to cook.
Length of Freezer Time
  • Fat does not freeze longer than about 6 months before it starts turning rancid.
  • My retired food science buddy, Dr. Ed Burns, always told me to make sure that you eat all the sausage (and any fatty game, such as ducks) before July 4th.  So eat it while you can enjoy it the most.
  • If you make the sausage with just the lean venison, then it will freeze longer.
©David Wm. Reed