2 Summer Sausage questions

[tprice]

Have a couple of questions regarding summer sausage

1-I have made several batches using the High Mountain seasoning and everything has been great(have used cracked black pepper/garlic and regular and also have Jalapeno but have not used it yet. Also add high temp cheddar cheese). I always add pork as per their directions

My question is I have seen other recipies here, youtube and etc and a lot of them just use straight venison and do not mention anything about adding pork.

I have a couple of SS kits that I got from Butcher n Pack and I am thawing some deer burger out now and thinking of making a batch without the pork added to see the difference

Is the pork really that necessary, I can understand how it works but just curious

When I have my deer processed one of the processors I pay extra for him to add bacon fat or beef fat to the burger, so wondering if would help as opposed to just plain ground venison

Question # 2

Tonight I had some logs on the smoker and a couple of them split near the end

Normally I take them out when IT hits 160/165 but these hit 174(got tied up and time slipped up on me)

Is the higher temp what caused them to split/crack. Only happened on 2 of the 5 logs and near one end on each

 

[bmudd14474]

If there was already fat in the mix then you should be good but it you are grinding the meat yourself then you def want to add the pork for the fat content.

Yes the higher temp will cause the issues you had. When you get it that high the fat renders off and so you have the cracks and all.

 

[rbranstner]

Question #1 I would definitely say you would want some  type of pork or beef fat added to the sausage otherwise it will get really dry as venison is very lean.

Question #2 Were the logs hanging in the smoker? Did they split  on the bottom which is closest to the heat source on the bottom of the smoker?

 

[mballi3011]

You don't have to use pork but you will need to add some sort of fat to the venison. Now if they mixed in fat you should be alright if the amount f fat is enough. I like to add about 30% fat to lean meat. Next question about splitting. I would have to ask like Rbranster how close to the heat source was the sausage? Your temps climbing on you would cause some of the fat to render I don't think that it would cause the cracks or splits.  

 

[tprice]

Thanks,

as for splitting it was the lower logs, too long to hang in my MES so lay them on racks

Never had any spit at all before but never got the temp that high before either

Thanks for the help on the added fat, processor does add bacon fat(what I get added to most of my burger) and beef fat but have no clue how much he is adding

I like the 30% rule and that is normally about what I add