Smokin',feel free to move this to the recipe forum,if indicated.
I thought I'd pass these on from our old friend JDB in Mo.
He is a fine cook,and meticulous in his writing.
He graciously posted this on Ray basso's forum.
In Reply to: Venison Summer Sausage Recipe for Beginners Part 1 posted by Juggy D Beerman on February 18, 2006 at 04:28:58:
Posted by Juggy D Beerman on February 18, 2006 at 04:28:58:
Yo to all, Before you get started reading this, go to the icebox and grab yourself a drink because this post might get a little long...... (Even by my standards. LOL)
This recipe is fairly simple, uses common spices and requires no meat grinder or sausage stuffer. You could get by without any ground venison too and just use a 50/50 mix of ground beef and ground pork. Make sure these two meats are at least 80% lean if not more fatty. If mixing ground venison, use a 40% mix of venison to 60% of the 50/50 mix of pork and beef. Now if you have a meat grinder that is great too as you can run the meat through a second time once the ground meat has been spiced to help distribute the spices, but this isn't necessary.
The link below comes from the old BBQ-Porch.org mailing list site. Some of you may notice this particular recipe calls for using straight deer meat with no binders or fat. That is why I mixed the beef and pork with it as deer meat is extremely lean. Plus my one time experience of cooking stuffed sausages that contained deer meat only turned out to be the worst sausage I ever made. But that is what the guy wanted, deer meat only.
The only thing I really followed from this were the spices and their respective amounts. One substitution I made was to use a GOOD DARK beer instead of water. Another variation that I did was to make a half batch of what the recipe called for. I did use 3/4 cup of brown sugar which was an optional ingredient listed in the recipe. If I were making a full batch, I would have used a cup and one-half.
Continued in part two..........
So here is what I did. First of all, I mixed all the dry ingredients in an old rub container to use for sprinkling on the ground meat. I used another rub container for the wet spices. I took two large serving trays and sprayed a light coating of oil on each of them. I then spread out all the ground meat on one tray and sprinkled half of the wet ingredients as evenly as possible on the meat. I then sprinkled about 2/5ths of the dry rub evenly on the meat.
Once one side had been spiced, I took the other tray and placed it on top of the bottom tray so I could turn the trays over. The unspiced side of the meat was now facing up. I then used the rest of the wet spices on the meat. Then I spinkled another 2/5ths worth of the dry rub and leaving about 1/5th to use for a rub to be applied once the sausage logs have been formed.
Once the meat had been spiced on both sides, I mixed it up to distribute the spices evenly. You can do this by hand or you can regrind the meat using a larger sized plate. If you are mixing by hand and the meat seems a little stiff or thick, add a little more water or some of that GOOD DARK beer to make the meat easier to mix.
After the spiced ground meat was thorougly mixed, I formed three logs about the diameter of a beer can. You can make just two logs out of a 2.5 pound batch if you want.
Once the logs were formed, I used the remaining dry ingredients as a rub on the exterior of the sausage logs. The brown sugar in the rub will carmelize and help seal the exterior of the sausage and act as somewhat of a casing. I then used plastic wrap to wrap each log and off into the icebox they went for 48 hours.
Two days later I fired up the WSM, but a Kettle will work too or even an BGE :-), and got the temperature dialed in at 250�F, grate temperature. I used pecan for smoke, but hickory or apple will do. Now during the first hour of cooking, the logs are going to settle and it will be necessary to turn them every 15-20 minutes so the logs keep their round shape. Once the logs have firmed up, it won't be necessary to turn them as often.
It usually takes about two hours cooking at 250� for the sausage logs to hit an internal temperature of 160�F. I like to take mine just a little higher than this, but 160�F is as low as I would go. Since this sausage gets sliced thin for crackers, a higher finish temperature seems to work better than the lower finish temperature recommended for regular sausages cooked in a casing.
Once the logs have hit above 160�F they get wrapped in foil and set on the counter to slowly cool. Once they are getting close to room temperature, I place them in the fridge. This stuff goes great with some cheese and crackers.
Make sure to keep a good eye on the sausage the first hour. They tend to settle their first hour of cooking and will lose their nice round shape if you don't turn them every 15 minutes or so.
I realize this post is extremely long, but like I said, this was posted for beginners.
Beers and deer sausage to all,
Juggy D Beerman
Anxiously awaiting Spring Training
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