<![CDATA[Wild Game: Cajun Goose Sausage]]>

Wild Game: Cajun Goose Sausage

Attend this entry-level class from Meatgistics University by watching the video, reading the article and post any questions you have!

Why Goose Sausage?

Goose Sausage is simply sausage that is made from a combination of Goose meat and pork fat. If you cannot get just pork fat you can use a 50/50 mix of goose to untrimmed pork butts but you will be happier with the finished product if you use 80% goose and 20% pork fat.

Meat Block

10 lb Goose
2.5 lb Pork Fat (or 10 lb untrimmed pork butts)

Ingredients:
1 bag Cajun Sausage Seasonings 11 oz for 12.5 lb batch
Sure Cure 1/2 oz for 12.5 lb batch
3/4 quart of water

Optional Ingredients:
Sure Gel Meat Binder - 3 oz per 12.5 lb
High-Temp Cheese - 1 lb
Either Encapsulated Citric Acid - 2 oz per 12.5 lb
OR
Sodium Erythorbate - 3 GRAMS for 12.5 lb batch

Equipment

Meat Grinder
Meat Mixer
Sausage Stuffer
Walton’s Sausage Tier (Optional)

Casing Preparation

We will be using 30mm Clear Collagen Casings and they don’t require any preparation, simply remove then from the package and load onto a stuffing tube. We chose the clear because we are going to hang these in our smokehouse, you can use smoked collagen if you want the mahogany appearance or even fresh collagen if you are going to coil the sausage on a rack in your smoker. If you try to hang fresh collagen in a smokehouse you are going to open your smoker and see all your product on the floor. It might not happen the first time you try it or the second but it will eventually happen, so don’t hang fresh collagen.

Process

Clean your goose and soak for 24 hours in salt water in a cooler. This will bleed the meat and give you better taste and consistency.
Pack your goose meat into an 8-inch wide vac bag roll (or use multiple 8" diameter bags if you don’t have a roll) and freeze it almost solid.
Cut the goose meat into chunks small enough to fit down the throat of your grinder.
Grind the goose meat through a 3/8" plate.
Grind the goose, and pork fat through a 1/8" plate (Yes, yes I know I said 1/16th" plate again, no such plate exists outside the crazy place that is my mind) Try to mix the pork fat in sporadically throughout the second grind to help disperse it evenly.

Pork Fat

With goose being as dark as it is and having a lighter consistency we really think it helped to go with straight pork fat, instead of a 50/50 mix of Goose to untrimmed Pork Butts. You want to go for either 20 or 25% fat content with these.

Pork Butts

If you cannot find any pork fat, you can use a 50/50 mix of goose and untrimmed pork butts

Meat Mixing

Mix seasoning, cure, sure gel, and a cure accelerator(unless it is encapsulated citric acid) with the meat. You want to mix this until you have very good protein extraction, you will know you have reached this when your meat starts getting very sticky and tacky and it pulls when you try to stretch it instead of breaking into smaller clumps. With a meat mixer, you usually want to mix around 8 minutes, being careful to change directions of the paddles every minute or so. If you used encapsulated citric acid you should add it, along with the cheese, during the last 60 seconds of mixing. This will prevent the encapsulation from splitting or the cheese smearing.

Sausage Stuffing

Choose the largest tube that your casing will fit over. We did both the 30mm clear collagen. With the collagen casings, you want to stuff until you can faintly see a swirling line down the casing. Then cut them to the longes length that you can hang in your smoker.

Note

The Walton’s Sausage Linker can be a big-time saver here. With just a little practice you can tie off your casings in a fraction of the time it takes to hand-tie them.

Thermal Processing & Smoking:

120° for 30 Minutes (With No Smoke Or Humidity and Vents Wide Open)
140° For 60 Minutes (Add Smoke & Humidity and close vents 3/4)
160° For 60 Minutes (Continue Smoke & Humidity)
185° Until Internal Temperature is 165° Remove smoke & continue adding humidity, also close vents

Cooling

Run a 5-minute shower cycle with fans on
OR
Place in an ice bath for 10 minutes to stop the cooking process & help set the casing for the collagen and helps separate it from the cellulose.

Wrap up

With Goose, I think using pork fat made a big difference vs a 50/50 mix with untrimmed pork butts, this allowed the goose color, flavor and consistency to stand out. The cellulose casings worked wonderfully here, the skinless products appearance and consistency was a big hit

Other Notes

24-hour soak in saltwater will help bleed the meat
Remember to freeze your meat almost solid
Without a cure accelerator of some kind, you need to hold this for 12 hours after stu8ffing before going to the smoker.