Venison Sausage

Smokey EggHead

I decided to do some sausage out of some venison my daughter gave me. Started with a Venison Italian Sausage by doing 50/50 boston butt and venison. Ground it the first time then added the spices. My wife had ordered the spices from Zach's Spice Company. It is specially formulated for venison.




We ground it the second time with the spices and it really turned out very good. Here's where we fried up a sample piece for taste. Yummy!!!




We then decided to do some Kielbasa Sausage. Here it is after the second grind




Of coarse we had to fry a patty up to make sure it tasted good.....




Blending it for texture.....




After blended.....




We decided to wrap them in corn husks.....




17 bundles of joy now waiting on the smoker....




On the large BGE....




Now just waiting on them to get to over 140 degrees internal temperature....





I do recommend the spices from Zach's Spice Company!!

thirdeye

Looking forward to seeing the finished product... Yours is the second batch in a couple of weeks that I've seen cooked in corn husks.

Your ratio of venison to pork will work fine. I don't double grind, but that is a personal preference. Next time, try blending it by hand (with rubber gloves) as it's easier to get the iced water mixed in just right, and you get less splattering on the wall. Heheee. For food safety, sausages should be taken to 165° internal.

CVDSmokeShack

You guys are good!

Smokey EggHead

Although the picture of the blender really looks like it is flying, it was actually turning very slow. Thank goodness cause I hate cleaning the walls. We did blend the spices by hand but to change the texture and add the ice water we did blend on the lowest setting. We will try it by hand next time. I was a little concerned myself with the 140 deg temp so we are going to go ahead and smoke until the 165 deg internal temp. Thanks for the correction.

thirdeye

I've tried mixers with a variety of attachments (blades, hooks etc.), as well as meat mixers, which are a stainless steel box with a shaft that has a series of forks on it. I still prefer doing it by hand because it's so much easier to tell when the amount of liquid is right. You can sort of feel the "stickiness" you are after for the particular application, whether it be meatballs, patties, bulk pack, fatties, or stuffed.

With certain recipes I use other chilled liquids. Hot links get cold beer, and I make a Sicilian Italian sausage (it has Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese) with cold Pinot Grigio wine.

cookn biker

Great post all the way around!! Like the corn husk idea.
Thanks!

gdenby

Myself, I've not seen sausage cooked in corn husks. Looks like an obvious choice of wrapper if there are lots of corn husks laying around. Am I right that the sausage will not be stored in the husks, just cooked?

Smokey EggHead

That does make sense to mix by hand. We will make that change next try. This is our very first try at any type of sausage so we do appreciate the knowledge transfer.

BTW, the wife said that you need to share some of those recipes that you make reference to.

fishlessman

looks great, make sure to get a pic when you open it up. i never make it past the sample stage :laugh:

Hoss

That looks GREAT!

Smokey EggHead

Thanks Molly. The corn husk idea came from my wife watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and that we didn't have any casings. Although a friend said he would shoot a deer and, if we wanted to slap them empty against a stump, we could have them. We chose to go with the corn husks.....

The wife has been cooking some homemade spaghetti with some of the Italian Sausage!! Life is good!! :cheer:

thirdeye

Sure, no problem. http://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/2006/02/recipes.html

Look in the SAUSAGE section. One article deals with making sausage, another has some of my favorite recipes

Smokey EggHead

We actually got the corn husks idea from my wife watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. One of the restaurants actually did their sausage in corn husks. We plan on freezing the sausage without the corn husks. Afraid the corn husks would cause too much corn flavor if it is frozen in them.

thechief96

I have been thinking about making sausage. Yours looks eggcellent. And we have corn husks here all the time. Sure would be an easy fix to try some different methods and recipes.

Smokey EggHead

Thanks Thirdeye! The wife is excited now!!

Smokey EggHead

Thanks Dave. Ours is pretty simple, equal parts of venison and boston butt plus the spices from Zach's Spice Company http://www.zachspice.com/. A good grinder, we use a grinder attachment to our Kitchen Aid mixer. Two grinds but add the spice between the grinds. We take the dried corn husks (purchase at most grocery stores), and soak them in water. We that a couple of corn husks and tear them into strips and soak the strips in water. We use the torn corn husks stripes as the ties on each end of the corn husks once they are rolled with sausage in the center. Then we are smoking them on a large BGE with a Stoker controller. We started with the temperature in the middle of the grate at 150 degs. We ramped the temp up after the initial smoke of apple wood of about an hour to 175 degrees. It is currently set at 180 degrees measured at the grate and the internal temp of the sausage at 135.9 degrees. We have decided to wait for the internal temp to reach 165 degrees.

Hope this helps.

Keith

thechief96

Thaks Keith. That helps a bunch.

Metalhead

why, why, why do ya'll keep posting such good looking foods? I'm hungry now.

Lobicho

this ones in mexico are better known as TAMALES!!!

Great job...

They look AWEEEEEESOME!!!!!!!!!