Venison / Pork Sausage Questions

[bobfrapples]

Planning to make some venison / pork sausage and smoke it but had a couple questions:

1. Finding pure pork fat has been harder so I was going to use pork butt instead, what’s a good ratio for pork butt and venison? Most of what I read suggested 50/50 for using pork butt (not pure pork fat) but I want to make sure it won’t be too dry and still has good flavor.

2. Any suggestions on seasonings? I’ve always purchased seasonings from amazon from various manufactures and never been impressed. I’d like to give some stuff from Walton’s website a try. Our typical taste is something with a little heat (not overbearing), and like almost all warm blooded humans, we like the taste of garlic. Any suggestions? I was thinking the roasted garlic seasoning but the cajun seasoning also caught my eye.

[bocephus]

bobfrapples I think a 50/50 mixture is good for pork butt and venison sausage. That is the ratio we use.

[HerbcoFood]

For link sausage I do 50/50, depending on the how fatty or lien the pork butts I get I make get some pork fat to add to the portion of pork on it’s 50% side.

[kyle]

bobfrapples for what it’s worth, I always go 50/50 and always use pork butts. When I buy them I do look for fattier ones tho

[mrobisr]

bobfrapples butt works great and if you can find a butcher that does pork steaks they have more fat and are usually 50% cheaper or least in my neck of the woods your milage may vary. In a pinch I have used pork loins and boxes of bacon ends and pieces and that worked well… Don’t know about Walton’s seasonings I mix my own.

[sjhuntingfool]

I go 50/50 when I use butts. My local butcher will set some fat aside for me but during deer season he uses what he has and doesn’t always have it available. When I get fat I use 30%

[Garry Tarpley]

We been eating it ,using pork fat, at 70/30 but it’s fairly lean . I been thing of bumping my fat up to 40%. Luckily I can get pork fat at my local Brookshires grocery store.

[ND Mike]

bobfrapples we have always done a 50/50 mix using pork butts as well.

[processhead]

I prefer a higher fat content in most sausage I make than what you will get with 50/50 venison and pork butt.
Consider that a pork butt alone will trim out to roughly 75/25 lean to fat, which is about ideal for sausage.

Now, you are going to dilute that ideal ratio with 100% lean venison. That is going to bring final lean to fat ratio closer to 88/12 lean to fat.
If you have done this and like the resulting product, then its no problem and go for it. If you are trying to replicate some traditional sausage styles, to may find it is much leaner and dryer sausage than you may be expecting.

For what its worth, I used to make my venison sausage the same way, 50/50 lean venison and pork butt. It was ok, just not what you would expect for most sausage styles and a dryer than I prefer.

For sausage, I am now doing a combination of 50 lean venison /30 pork butt/ 20 pork fat.
Pork fat can be hard to find, but it’s out there.

[bocephus]

bobfrapples You might throw in some bacon ends and pieces that would probably raise the fat content some.

[jpurol]

bobfrapples
50/50 is what I use for all my venison sausages.

[smokinbubba]

50/50 for anything other than breakfast sausage. I feel it needs more creamy white goodness. As for seasoning, I will use nothing but Waltons Holly regular for bfast sausage. I have found no better. It wont give you the heat but the flavor is spot on.

[Moistiestdrip]

I’ve used 50/50 before. I would suggest finding the fattiest pork butts possible. I like all my stuff from summer sausage to breakfast sausage to bratwurst to be around 80/20.

[JohnG5]

bobfrapples I would suggest 70/30 at the least and up to 50/50 when using venison. For seasoning Hatch Green Chili Flavored Brat will provide some heat and includes garlic in its ingredients.