|
|
Venison Summer Sausage
You want a final meat/fat ratio somewhere between 80/20 and 70/30. Most common is to use pork fatback for the fat. Most folks also add some pork butt. If you do, be sure to consider the fat content of added domestic meat when computing your meat/fat ratio.
|
| Servings |
| 25lbs meat&fat |
|
|
- 227g salt — canning/pickling or kosher. Not iodized
- 57g powdered dextrose
- 7g ground ginger
- 7g dry mustard
- 6oz Waltons ‘Sure Gel’ Meat Binder — There are other binders. Feel free to substitute if you do your research, but Do NOT use “Sure-Jell” fruit pectin. TOTALLY DIFFERENT!
- 7g Granulated garlic
- 28g ground black pepper — grind just before adding
- 7g ground coriander — grind fresh if you can
- 85g corn syrup solids
- 28g Instacure #1 — Curing salt. a.k.a Prague Powder #1.
- 4cups Cold Liquid (stock, dry red wine, or ice water) — If using a gelatinous stock (good!) stir vigorously to break up clumps before making slurry or mixing into meat.
- 1cup whole black peppercorns (optional) — Primarily visual, but taste a bit pungent at first. They mellow after a couple of days.
- 3/4cup whole mustard seed (optional) — Primarily visual. Brown, yellow, or a mix of both
- 3oz ECA (Encapsulated Citric Acid) — The magic ingredient to produce tang without fermentation. Delicate, don’t mix too long.
- Read through the directions and make a plan for your time. Most important is to avoid significant delay between the time you add the ECA, and when you load the smoker. Get all your ingredients together. And clear out enough space in your fridge and freezer – you’re going to be shifting meat and grinder parts back and forth and need room to refrigerate the sausages when you’re done.
- Make slurry by mixing ground/powdery bits with liquid. Take care to ensure there are no lumps. Consider doing this a day or two ahead and storing it in the fridge.
- Before grinding, stage detachable grinder parts, fat and chunked meat in freezer until meat is well firmed but not frozen hard (≈ half an hour)
- Coarse grind the fat and meat (≈ 3/8″, 9mm or 10mm plate) and return to freezer along with the detachable grinder parts for another 20-30 minutes.
- Fine grind meat and fat (≈ 3/16″, 4.5mm or 5mm plate).
- Optionally stage covered overnight in the fridge. Otherwise return meat to freezer another 20-30 minutes before proceeding
- Soak fibrous casings in warm water. They should soak at least half an hour before stuffing. This is really just prep for step 5 — but timing-wise you should do it now.
- NOTE: Mixing is not just to distribute the ingredients. There is also a physical change to the meat called “protein extraction” which is a key factor in the final texture of your sausage. Cured/smoked products like summer sausage take about 5-7 minutes in a powered mixer to hit the right amount of protein extraction. A little more for a hand-crank mixer (depending on the operator). For pure hand mixing you go by feel, not by time. As you mix the meat it will become increasingly more sticky. When it wants to stretch a bit rather than just separating when pulling a glob apart, it is ready. If you’re not sure what I mean go to youtube and search for “sausage protein extraction” and you should find some clear examples.
- Briefly mix slurry into the meat
- Add peppercorns and mustard seed and thoroughly mix until correct protein extraction is achieved.
- Add the ECA and mix 45-60 seconds, not longer, unless by hand and you think it needs a little more. This is the final mix.
- Stuff casings
- Hang sausages at room-temp an hour or two to dry the casings. Not longer if you used ECA. This is a good time for the dog to be outside.
- Preheat smoker to 120°F, then further dry the casings by hanging sausages in the chamber, with full open damper, for 2 hours with no water.
- Add a water pan with a chamois or large sponge (helps increase humidity). Keep an eye on the water for the rest of the cook and top off with boiling water if it gets low.
- Apply smoke, close damper to about 1/3rd open, and follow this schedule for the smoker temp: — 125°F for 4 hours — 145°F for 2 hours — 165°F for 2 hours
- Stop smoke. Raise smoker to 170°F and hold there until internal sausage temp hits 152°F. BE PATIENT – it can take a while
- Remove from smoker and immediately shower or ice bath until internal temp < 120°F
- Hang to “bloom” at room temp 2 to 4 hours, then refrigerate a couple of days if you can stand to wait. Keeps a long while in the fridge, but best to freeze for long-term storage. Slice some and email a photo to Steve@KillerNoms.com.
Two things can be done in advance to make things less hectic on mixing/stuffing/smoking day: make the slurry a day or two before, and store covered in the fridge. You can also grind and stage the meat/fat block and stage in the fridge overnight.
Purchase enough casings to comfortably hold the batch. Somewhere around 2.5″ diameter is traditional for summer sausage. If you plan to hang them to smoke, buy a length that will hang without leaving the bottom of the sausage too near your heat source – which might cause the bottom to overcook. Of course, you could cut them to fit before stuffing. Or you can lay them on grates rather than hanging.
Casings are widely available but my favorites are the beautiful casings from a Ukraine company called Seym. They sell through Ebay and Amazon here:
Ebay: ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ssn=fashionseim
Amazon: amazon.com/s?k=SEYM&i=kitchen
(2022 update – Though SEYM is in Ukraine. Despite the war their ebay and Amazon presence appears to still be current and active – though Ebay may have more of their products than does Amazon.)
Seym liked the picture I took of my sausages so much they made it their profile pic on their Facebook page! How cool is that? Shipping takes a few weeks so plan ahead. I actually keep them in stock and re-order when I’m ready to use what I have on hand. They last forever, so why not.