Sausage season

[Nick87]

Ya, it was less than ideal. Also meant I got really used to low fat sausages... I'm not doing 30% beef fat when the fat is going for $3/lbs. Heck at one point brisket was cheaper than what I could get trim fat for! Granted it was on sale, but still

Place in town wanted $4.50 for trim.

 

[SD_Prairie_Goat]

Place in town wanted $4.50 for trim.

Did they ask for your first born too??

 

[Nick87]

Did they ask for your first born too??

Right, but I guess when hamburger is like what $8 in the store?

Edit- we don't really buy much meat from the store. Googled it looks like $5 or so

 

[WildWill]

I save all the trim off the briskets and tri-tips I cook and use it for hamburger. We slaughtered two pigs in November and use the back fat and a couple shoulders for sausage making.

 

[squirrel]

Found a place this year with $.69 pork fat, extremely high quality. Same price for beef fat, got 3-10# packs of beef but one was older and not as good. The other two were also super quality. Ive found out the hard way that cutting corners on your fat compromises the end result and its freezer shelf life. We ended up with several hundred pounds of grinder chunks this year. We needed a lot of straight burger but had enough leftover for re-stocking all the sausage varieties.

Went heavy on hot breakfast which mimics spicy jimmy dean and freezes superbly. Favourite was smoked breakfast which does not take the freezer as well, so we have taken to doing it in smaller batches and always keeping it up top in the freezer.

Next victim is not venison but all pork hot Polish. Need to finish the regular polish before tackling the new batch. Stuffed sausages and the freezer are a bad mix, the sooner one learns this sausage truth the happier little sausage stuffer you will be...

 

[gburk]

I save all the trim off the briskets and tri-tips I cook and use it for hamburger. We slaughtered two pigs in November and use the back fat and a couple shoulders for sausage making.

awesome.. would love to have some pigs!

 

[SD_Prairie_Goat]

Right, but I guess when hamburger is like what $8 in the store?

Edit- we don't really buy much meat from the store. Googled it looks like $5 or so

I don't either, but ya I will check the store every so often to gasp at the price of ground. I remember when my dad was mad that ground was over $1/lbs. Long way from that...

 

[xebadir]

Decided to catch up on my grinding. Did 25lb of venison hot dogs, at a 20% fat content. Mission was successful, though stuffing was somewhat of a pain as my lem 5lb stuffer decided to bend at the bottom plate, and the celluose casings I had were more narrow than I thought at 19mm and a real pain. Ended up switching to 21mm collagen in a hurry, and finished up the last 3lb in a fibrous. Did 20lb worth in the sous vide after chamber vacuuming, the thicker sausage and the 19s I ran through the smoker as basically snack sticks. So in the market for a better stuffer I think.

 

[Dave N]

Decided to catch up on my grinding. Did 25lb of venison hot dogs, at a 20% fat content. Mission was successful, though stuffing was somewhat of a pain as my lem 5lb stuffer decided to bend at the bottom plate, and the celluose casings I had were more narrow than I thought at 19mm and a real pain. Ended up switching to 21mm collagen in a hurry, and finished up the last 3lb in a fibrous. Did 20lb worth in the sous vide after chamber vacuuming, the thicker sausage and the 19s I ran through the smoker as basically snack sticks. So in the market for a better stuffer I think.

I had the same problem with my last stuffer. The bottom plate was plastic and bent letting the meat squeeze past. This one has a metal plate. 11 pound capacity. Never looked at the other sizes to see if they had metal plates as well or not. Quick search found this one is around $220.

 

[Gulf of America]

Does anyone have a good hotdogs recipe or kit? I git lifted some from whitetail hotdogs from a guy that had them done at a processor. I thought they were gonna suck turned out to be some of the best I've ever had.

PS Seasonings Blue Ribbon Weiner seasoning is money. Super rich flavor, similar to a Costco hot dog without the 12 hours of hotdog burps. I made 20lb this year after a 5lb experiment last year that turned out way too good and didn't even last til summer. I use the 26mm collagen casings, smoke lightly with water in the pan to keep them from shriveling, and dunk in an ice bath immediately after pulling them out.

 

[Nick87]

PS Seasonings Blue Ribbon Weiner seasoning is money. Super rich flavor, similar to a Costco hot dog without the 12 hours of hotdog burps. I made 20lb this year after a 5lb experiment last year that turned out way too good and didn't even last til summer. I use the 26mm collagen casings, smoke lightly with water in the pan to keep them from shriveling, and dunk in an ice bath immediately after pulling them out.

Vension? Fat added?

 

[Gulf of America]

Vension? Fat added?

Yep, elk both times but I don't think deer would taste any different. I think I did about 30% pork butt; maybe a mixture of pork butt and beef suet, it was kind of whatever we had left at the end of 200ish lbs of deer and elk sausage.

 

[Nick87]

Yep, elk both times but I don't think deer would taste any different. I think I did about 30% pork butt; maybe a mixture of pork butt and beef suet, it was kind of whatever we had left at the end of 200ish lbs of deer and elk sausage.

Thanks.

 

[sigpros]

Butcher-packer.com has an amazing trail bologna kit. You can get it in 10lb or 25lb plus they sell everything for making sausage. I need to make some I have a couple kits. I just don’t have the time. But I’ll be saving fat from the steers and pigs this year.

 

[xebadir]

Vension? Fat added?

I prefer an 80/20 venison pork fat mix, rather than blending fatty pork. It’s plenty fat enough to smoke or otherwise. I can’t use commercial mixes as wife has allergies, so tend to roll my own. I go:
16 ounces spices for 25lb
8 ounce salt
2 ounces pepper (usually a blend of white and black)
2 ounces paprika
1.5 ounce onion powder
1.5 ounce garlic powder
1 tsp marjoram
1 ounce mustard powder
1 ounce of pink cure

Best if you do your spices after chunking and before first grind, grind coarse, medium, medium, fine, add 2.5lb ice after 3rd grind to keep temp down, start binding. Mix well with about 500ml water (dissolve pink cure in it) until you get a well bound consistency, stuff from there.

 

[JV842]

I prefer an 80/20 venison pork fat mix, rather than blending fatty pork. It’s plenty fat enough to smoke or otherwise. I can’t use commercial mixes as wife has allergies, so tend to roll my own. I go:
16 ounces spices for 25lb
8 ounce salt
2 ounces pepper (usually a blend of white and black)
2 ounces paprika
1.5 ounce onion powder
1.5 ounce garlic powder
1 tsp marjoram
1 ounce mustard powder
1 ounce of pink cure

Best if you do your spices after chunking and before first grind, grind coarse, medium, medium, fine, add 2.5lb ice after 3rd grind to keep temp down, start binding. Mix well with about 500ml water (dissolve pink cure in it) until you get a well bound consistency, stuff from there.

Don’t know what paprika you use but I’ve been getting a very good but not cheap sweet Hungarian paprika from Bun and Barrel….it will change your perception of paprika….its very very good
Should be pulling a batch of dry sausage in a day or two that I used that as the forward flavor, will post results

 

[xebadir]

Hmm - interesting - I'm using just a standard sweet, but sounds like that might be worth experimenting with.

 

[WildWill]

After people snacking during the super bowl and what my niece and brother took home this is about half the jerky and snack sticks from this weekend. Orginally was 5lb jerky with orginal high mountain seasoning and 10lb of sticks with half orginal half cracked black pepper.

 

[WildWill]

Knocked out 25lb of Italian sausage while snowed in today.

 

[Steelsearchin]

How'd the sundried tomato Excalibur taste test go? I'm down to the last 3# of Italian in the freezer. Just about everything I've had from them has been awesome. Might have to give it a go.