What is Venison Summer Sausage

Venison Summer Sausage is a semi-dried sausage that is typically stuffed into a larger diameter fibrous casing and made from venison and pork or pork fat. It can be made from beef, pork, wild game or some combination of meat. Some people are intimidated by making it but the most basic steps can be done by almost any home processor.

Meat Block

6 lb venison
1.5 lb pork fat

Ingredients

H Summer Sausage Seasoning
Sure Gel
Encapuslated Citric Acid

Grinding

Grind all meat twice, first through a 3/8 plate and second through a 1/8 plate. Make sure your meat is very cold before you begin grinding, not only is this going to keep you away from the “danger zone” (40°-140°F) but it is also going to speed up the grinding process. Putting your meat back in the freezer between the first and second grind can actually save you time depending on the sharpness of your plate and knife and the power of your grinder.

Mixing

Before mixing you are going to want to determine how much seasoning and additives you need. We have breakdown charts for seasonings, cures and additives HERE But a simple way to do it is to take the weight of your seasoning and divide that by the batch size (in most cases 25 lb of meat) and that will give you the lb of seasoning you need per lb of meat, then multiply that by the number of pounds of meat you are making. Then, multiply that by 16 to get it in ounces and then multiply that by 28.2 if you want to figure out the grams from the ounces.

Add meat, seasoning, water and cure to the mixer and begin mixing. You want to get protein extraction here so you will be mixing for around 8 minutes. During the last 60 seconds add your encapsulated citric acid and cheese, this will prevent the citric acids encapsulation from rupturing and being released too soon and it will prevent the cheese from smearing.

Stuffing

Choose the largest stuffing tube that your casings will fit over and stuff until the fibrous or collagen casing is full, smooth and firm. Then clip the open end closed with a Hog Ring or a Bag and Casing Clipper.

Smoke Schedule

120° for 30 minutes with dampers wide open and no water pan
135° for 60 minutes, add smoke and humidity
150° for 60 minutes
175° until internal temperature is 160°

Wrap Up

If you aren’t going to add pork fat or pork to your venison then you can add Carrot Fiber and Cold phosphate to increase the water holding capacity of the meat. However, this is going to increase the pH of the meat, meaning A) the shelf life will be shortened and B) you cannot use a cure accelerator such as Encapsulated Citric Acid as it will be counteracted by the Cold Phosphate.

Other notes

If your meat had already been ground once at a processors, you only need to grind it one more time through the 1/8" plate.

Shop waltonsinc.com for Camo Fibrous Summer Sausage Casing

Shop waltonsinc.com for Summer Sausage Seasoning

Watch WaltonsTV: Wild Game: Venison Summer Sausage