Thought I would share a picture of my final product for the year. This my 2nd year doing maple syrup, last year we made right around 2gallons. My hope last year was to double my output…well I finished just a touch over 9gallons. Took about 3weeks with a few very late late nights which made work really drag on the next day. Im in North Central Minnesota, and its pretty much the end for everyone. I pulled my taps on saturday during my final boil. Im guessing I collected around 280 gallons of sap this year.

I decided to try my hand at brats with some pork trim and a little venison I had left over from last year. I’ve made a few brats before but theyve never been good. (With the exception of some venison andouille)

I split a few seasoning with a buddy and had 4 - 12.5 lb amounts of seasoning.
Philly Cheese
Chicago
Blue Ribbon added high temp cheddar cheese
Onion & Garlic.

I did 4 - 10lb batches 70pork/30venison. I thawed all the pork and venison which had been coarse ground 1x. I think mixed the seasonings and meats lightly by hand and ground through the fine plate. Stuffed in 32mm hog casings. I need some practice in stuffing and linking but I’ll get there I hope. Vac sealed and froze. So far I’ve had the chicago and blue ribbon, I gotta say these are both amazing. I agree with John that brat casings are to big for most buns.

Wild Game Pastrami

Put all your ingredients into a pot on the stove, you do not need to add all the water (1/2 is fine). Warm the brine until sugar and salt are dissolved and pickling spice has stained the water. Then let cool.
Place meat + brine (including extra water you may not of had on the stove) in a plastic container and will hold meat plus 1gallon of brine. Place container into the fridge for 5-7days. Its not a bad idea to turn the meat 1-2x during the brining process.

Remove meat after 5-7days and rinse under cold water. Place into plastic container and run cold water until meat is submerged; you’re desalinating the meat. Change water every 2-4 hours at least 3x. I usually try to get a 6-8hour soak with 3 water changes minimum.

Remove from desalination container and pat dry with paper towel. Apply rub heavily. I usually try to apply the rub to the point I can barely see the meat; pat the rub in do not rub it. I want to make a seasoning crust with it.

I smoke the meat starting in the 180-190 smoker temp, after the 90min I increase the temp to 225 until a 155 internal temp. Remove from smoker and place into refrigerator until cool. Use a slicer or slicing knife and cut to desired thickness.

Brine
5lb raw weight whole muscle
1 gallon water
1 cup salt
2 teaspoons cure #1
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons pickling spice
2 tablespoons of garlic (3 cloves minced)

Rub
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons coriander powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
1 teaspoon mustard powder

Disclaimer + opinion: This recipe was originated from amazingribs.com Close to Katz article. I have made the recipe following exactly with beef and then when I switched to wild game I started to modify the recipe to my liking. My favorite cut to use is a venison top or bottom round muscle. I also have used whole Canadian goose breast always turns out good. If you reference back to the article I cant stress enough there is no need to steam the muscle or smoke to an IT of 202. With wild game there is very little intramuscle connective tissue to break down or fat to render.

Enjoy.

With hog prices being through the floor last spring (And still) I picked up a hog and butchered and processed myself. Almost the whole thing is gone over the summer. Except the hams. I deboned them and tied some of the muscles to keep them nice and round. I did the sirloin tip roast whole 17lbs and then separated top/bottom rounds. Dry EQ cured the small ones and wet EQ cured the big roasts. Hot smoked till I hit 140-145ish IT and pulled and put the fridge to hang out for a few days. Then ran them through the slicer. I did a 3% salt, 1.25% sugar and .25% cure. Turned out very good as any store bought smoked ham I’ve had.

Sliced it thin and vac sealed in 1/3lb packages for a single serve style package. Just a couple good sandwiches per package. If I do any more after vac sealing then I would put whats left in to a zip lock to store for a few days and then throw the zip lock away…seems like a waste of $$ when I can vac seal for 1/20 of what a zip lock costs.

.25% of the weight in cure #1. if your using a wet brine add the weight of your meat and water. I would take a look at amazingribs.com Close to Katz recipe. Its a spot on process. I’ve adapted the recipe for wild game and my version is in the User Recipe area.

You ever find that recipe and its just 100% the first time? Yeah, me neither. I found a 100% pork andouille recipe on FB a few years ago. I tried it with an 80/20 venison/pork mix the first time and it was great…but not perfect. IN the last few years I’ve tweaked it a few times. Im getting there…this is excellent and super simple recipe to follow. Tomorrow I’ll try to throw up the recipe when I get to work and have my PC handy.
60 venison, 10 pork fat, 30 ground pork trim. Course ground then fine ground. Mixed by hand until my hands couldnt take the cold any more…(didnt wanna dirty up the mixer for only 7lbs). stuffed in hog casing. Left 36 hours in the fridge then smoked 140-165-185-200 till an IT of 150 and then I killed the smoker and left them sit while I was attending to some other things outside before I could pull them.

processhead the best well known eq calculator I see shared on social media is http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

The eq calculator is adjustable and I from what I see on social media most people prefer 1.8% salt 1% sugar .25% cure. Personally I like 2.2%salt 1.2%sugar .25%cure. I’ve made somewhere between 600-700 lbs of bacon since April '20 when I bought my new pellet smoker.

The glass flask bottles came from amazon, last year they were the cheapest thing I could find. They are re-used from last years batch. All the syrup bottles are from a little shop in a town near me that has a syrup supply area in the back corner.
processhead as far as the cap colors, there is no difference. My dog got ahold of one of the bag and chewed on some so I bought replacements; they just happened to be a different color. Most of the white caps were my first and second batch. The flasks and bigger bottles to the left side were my 3rd/4th batch. Theres very minimal difference in syrup color but the larger containers make it look darker.

YooperDog How to compare venison liver to beef or pork?

I’ve never had fried pork or venison liver and Im not a huge fan of fried beef liver, but I LOVE pate and braunschweiger. Im going to be trying to make braunschweiger from some venison liver this fall and possibly some boudin.

Well, I tried the philly and onion garlic today…meh. They were good but I gotta say the blue ribbon brats with high temp cheddar… possibly the best brats I’ve ever eaten. I poached in beer on pellet grill with a onion cut up. Then grilled at 275 to just put a little color on them, and they were amazing. I’ve given away about 20 of the 40lbs of brats I made and will most likely pass out the rest of these just for an excuse to make more.

PapaSop said in Venison Meatloaf:

m.

You havent “smoked a fatty”, bacon weaved X-stuffed meatloaf SMOKED was all the rave 3-ish years ago on the facebook smoking groups. Cheese is the common one but veggies, sauces, you name it stuffed inside.

Im finding the current font easier to read than the last font from a few days ago. Alot less eye strain.

I use ground venison 100% lean mixed with beef burger (80/20) and then just your standard meatloaf type recipes. Turns out better than just beef burger IMO based off of less rendered fat pooled around the edges.

I think you could possibly offer a pretty unique item if you can hammer out a good tasting recipe. I picture the little disposable tinfoil loaf pans with cheese stuffed meatloaf. I dont think it will take much to get your texture/fat content right. Seasonings would be easy if you can buy meatloaf seasoning, mix it in a batch, place some meat into a disposable pan lay in a piece of cheese, pack meat in over the top and then vacseal or heatshrink package. Then again how many “2lb meatloafs” is a customer gonna order? Good luck.

As far as frozen stuffed peppers I dont think a green pepper will standup to freeze thaw bake cycle. I think the pepper will be come slimy and you’ll never get rid of that texture.

I will second or third or what the grape leaves. They make a huge difference in pickles. I put them in my hot dilly beans, all kinds of pickled vegetables.

snoweric if you want replicable bacon you need to know exactly how much of each ingredient you used every time.

Equilibrium method of curing is the answer; in my opinion everything else is wrong! When a recipe says “3 to 6lb piece of meat” and use X volume measurement for ingredient 1 you could be using 50% less/more of an ingredient 1. How could you ever get the same result …ok now off my soap box and back to letting everyone do their own thing.

2% salt 1% sugar .25% cure # 1 (sure cure) is a great base formula. Weigh your meat (belly) convert to grams (lbsx454) will get you close. You need to be able to measure by weight down to a gram. Waltons sells scales that go down to 100ths of a gram and you could buy from other places but we wont mention those. After making a batch if you want it more/less salty/sweet just adjust the % you used on your next batch. Just dont adjust the .25% cure.

I take full bellies slide them into a vac seal bag (2gallon ziplock works too). Mix my salt/sugar/cure in a bowl and I reach in with a spoon and sprinkle over the meat. Vacate the air and into the fridge for minimum 10days. 10days minimum…maximum what ever works. It cant get any more or less salty due to the fact you only put so much salt in there to start. Remove from bag and place in fridge for 24hours to form pellicle, cold smoke to desired amount or hot smoke to IT of 145 for USDA regulation of fully cooked pork. Place back into fridge for 24hours - 72hour to allow smoke flavor to mellow then semi freeze and slice.

Cabelas90 I agree. All my fresh brats are flat on 2 sides from the vac sealing and stacking in the freezer. Although it seems to make it nice to grill that way; and gives a bigger area to put grill marks on? Thanks for the response.

Do we have any refrigeration techs in the house? Today I scored a walk in door/frame, compressor, evaporator for an 8x8 freezer. I left the panels in the dumpster because they were pretty beat up and I was planning constructing a walk in cooler into a unique place in my garage.

I was hoping to find out what parts I need to convert to go from a walk-in freezer to a cooler or possibly a walk in freezer/cooler combo with some kind of powered damper on a thermostat. Mainly Im trying to figure out parts cost, not that Im gonna be there person doing it.

Very cool podcast. I really enjoyed. it.

Hey guys,

I’ve made summer sausage out of multiple kinds of wild game. This is probably my 6th or 7th batch of Canadian goose breast meat in the last few years. The goose meat is so much more wet than anything else it seems? I took this batch which calls for 20% pork or beef trim just 1 course grind for each and hand mixed. I took this batch ranging anywhere from 155 to 165 IT. And they still appear under cooked. My recipe also calls for water to mixed which I leave out with the goose meat. If I follow this recipe with venison or bear its fine. Is there something Im missing? Or a recommendation to get the texture of the meat more dry (or dry looking)?

Well I will try my normal method and run the IT up around the 190ish mark. If that doesnt yield the results I want I will go down the road of a rotisserie and report back.