Venison Sauage Noob

[OXN939]

Finally invested in a nice LEM grinder this year, so anticipating putting it to use here soon. Never done my own sausage before- any tips, tricks or seasonings I shouldn't miss starting off? Thanks on advance for any input!

 

[ericwh]

For sausage we include some fatty pork shoulder or some beef fat (which is very cheap from a butcher shop).

I have enjoyed Hank Shaw's recipes and also Len Poli's recipes.

Italian sausage is pretty versatile if you eat spaghetti/lasagna/meatloaf etc. I love the Fennel in it and we actually just put it in meat bags rather than casings for the uses I mentioned. This is my number one because we eat a lot of this stuff.

Hank shaw's chorizo is very good and basically ready-to-go taco meat. We do this in casings and you can grill them and eat them with sauteed onions and peppers and taco toppings or split the casings and brown it.

Hank Shaw's British Bangers are pretty standard sausage with a good amount of Sage in them. We do these in casings for grilling. I think you could probably eat this for breakfast as well (although it's not as sweet as some breakfast sausages) but we don't really eat sausage at breakfast.

Len Polis pepperoni is very good but we don't end up using that as much as the other sausages.

 

[TSAMP]

So taste is obviously subjective but I find beef fat very chalky and prefer pork fat. Which is harder to come by but worth it. Keep the meat very cold at all times. Dont feel like you need to buy a stuffer/mixer right away. I feel like its easy to overwork your blend with a mixer and turn the meat to a paste. Your grinder will stuff ok and hand mixing is fine.

Check out waltons.com they have a whole area of the site for how to make about anything with videos and you can also buy everything you'll possibly need from them as well.

 

[steadytowingandshot]

Make sure your fat is really cold, it makes grinding it easier. Also, don't try to grind all of the fat separately. Mix some lean in there or alternate lean/fat otherwise the fat just plugs up in the grinder. If you're using a prepackaged spice blend, I would recommend adding about 20% more than what the package indicates. My experience with a wide variety of sausage spice blends has been that you need just a touch more than what the package calls for on almost every one. I agree with ericwh about Hank Shaw's recipes.

 

[PNWGATOR]

Go to Hank Shaw’s web site ‘Honest Food’ and follow his advice, tutorials and recipes and you’ll be off to a solid start.

 

[MuleyFever]

I use bacon ends for my fat. I also usually go more towards 20-25% fat.

Get some insulated rubber gloves for mixing or wear some gloves inside larger rubber gloves.

 

[OXN939]

For sausage we include some fatty pork shoulder or some beef fat (which is very cheap from a butcher shop).

I have enjoyed Hank Shaw's recipes and also Len Poli's recipes.

Italian sausage is pretty versatile if you eat spaghetti/lasagna/meatloaf etc. I love the Fennel in it and we actually just put it in meat bags rather than casings for the uses I mentioned. This is my number one because we eat a lot of this stuff.

Hank shaw's chorizo is very good and basically ready-to-go taco meat. We do this in casings and you can grill them and eat them with sauteed onions and peppers and taco toppings or split the casings and brown it.

Hank Shaw's British Bangers are pretty standard sausage with a good amount of Sage in them. We do these in casings for grilling. I think you could probably eat this for breakfast as well (although it's not as sweet as some breakfast sausages) but we don't really eat sausage at breakfast.

Len Polis pepperoni is very good but we don't end up using that as much as the other sausages.

Awesome SA on all of this, thanks! Fennel has got to be one of the most underrated flavors out there for pairing with game.

So taste is obviously subjective but I find beef fat very chalky and prefer pork fat.

Definitely with you (and all the other guys above) on this. I've been working on fine tuning my bacon burger over the past few years, and grinding in about 1:7 bacon to game seems to be a sweet spot. Will for sure be using bacon ends for my first sausage attempts. Looks like I'm off to go do some research on Hank's process after I knock out some grad school homework. Thank you guys so much for the input!

 

[Bull_n_heat]

The fat helps hold the flavor in, but I think that 10% beef fat is more than enough to make your sausage taste like sausage while not completely overwhelming it (at least for my taste preference). I've used pork shoulder but prefer beef tallow because most places practically give it away and I like my stuff to be as close to wild game as I can help it.

I would recommend if you use you own mixes (which I would recommend), get the freshest spices you can. Seems like garlics (use whole cloves if you can help it!), peppers and other seasonings lose just enough of their ZIP over the course of a year or two to be noticeable. If you are using older spices, I would say double them relative to most recipes.