Am going to make some wild hog bologna. I have the larger casings. My question is, do I follow the seasonings for hotdogs? And same process? Don’t hotdog s before but not bologna. Also, can I substitute carrot fiber instead of sure gel?

Thanks. I forgot to ask. I am using pretty lean wild hog trimmings. No external fat to speak of. I have domestic pork fat that I add to sausage. Would you suggest adding about 20% fat in? Or is there more internal fat in the wild hog than I realize?

I’ve made ham twice now, it’s been small wild hog hams. The first was boneless. I injected it per the recipe. It turned out a bit salty, but otherwise excellent. The last one I did was bone-in, and weighed 4 pounds. I didn’t have sure gel and used carrot fiber instead. I injected and cooked as before. However in this finished ham there were obvious pockets of cure that were a bit unappetizing. Again, otherwise the flavor was great. I have two questions, first do you think the carrot fiber sub was an issue? I noticed that the injection mixture was pretty thick going in. Secondly, do you think soaking would be more effective than injection on such a small ham? And as far as cooking schedule on such a small ham, I shortened each temp/time period by about half, is that the right move? Thanks!

bcompton53
I forgot to add that in the first ham, due to the aforementioned confusion in the recipe, I injected and also let sit in brine for 4 days. The last ham was just soaked overnight. In both cases I left out the sodium Erythorbate.