Processing bulk venison sausage

[joeeden]

Hey everyone, I am going to try to process my KS whitetail this year. I am about to debone the quarters and I have a few questions for the brilliant minds on this forum.

 

1. I want mostly bulk sausage, (italian, breakfast, chorizo) I have seen recipes for all but I'm not clear on how much pork fat to add and how to go about it. It appears I should grind all of the venison coarsely, then mix with pork fat/shoulder and then season as I'd like. I don't want to grind it all now only to find out I should have mixed the pork first.

 

2. What kind of pork do you guys buy? I've seen folks recommend that the butcher cut a shoulder into strips ready for the grinder. Not sure if it's an option but sounds easier.

 

3. I do want some burger and I'm wondering what kind of ratio you guys use for that as well.

 

 

I feel like I've asked everything except how to kill the deer, but any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[azslim]

for me I use 2/3 game, 1/3 fatty pork butt - my sausage is real lean, for javelina I mix 50/50 just to get a bit more. You can buy ground pork at Costco, they put it out on Sunday's, occasionally some left on Monday.

 

I don't add anything to my burger, it's just lean, ground meat. If I want it to stick together for a meatloaf I'll add in a couple eggs.

 

There are recipe's posted here already for the Italian, Chorizo and Breakfast sausages

[muledeerarea33?]

Pork butt or shoulder roast for sausage (think it the same cut of meat?) and the fatty end of the brisket for burger. If you can get some butcher beef trim from t-bones or porterhouse for burgers you'll thank me! Haha. I've also mixed pork country ribs with rabbit, fox, bobcat, lion, deer, elk, etc. and had good game sausage.

[CouesWhitetail]

Pork butt/shoulder is what I use. I remove the giant heavy piece of fat on the end and don't use it. I found it gummed up my grinder too much. I just use the meat that is left and it has a great ratio of fat marbled within it already. But I like my sausage leaner too, so you might prefer more fat. I use about 25-50% pork meat to 50-75% venison. My butcher suggested "bacon ends and pieces" which they had packaged up in the sausage section. You might look into that.

 

What you can do is just mix some with different fat contents and see what you personally like. Then go with that amount of fat and spice. Everyone likes things differently.

[Coues79]

For your burger, I'm not quite sure if you're going to use beef fat or not but that's what I use. Grind up your fat before you do your meat and add to your liking. I believe I found my palate desired about a 90/10 content. Finding some good corn fed beef fat is great to add into your ground meat for burger.

[azslim]

I have also used burger for a different flavor, mix 1 to 1 game and 70/30 or 80/20 store bought hamburger, works good for taco meat Chorizo

[257wby]

I just made some breakfast sausage out of this years mule deer and I am happy with the recipe I chose. I used 3 lbs of venison, 1 lb of pork fat, and 1 lb of pork shoulder. This was my first attempt at making my own sausage, so its kind of a safe recipe. Good luck.