Don't do a thing as far as soaking or brining. As far as gamey taste goes, well just remember. Deer meat is not beef, its a whole different animal just as lamb, goat or buffalo all taste different from one another. I love the taste of pure venison steaks myself. The deer meat takes on a flavor from what its been eating mostly. Deer taste different from ones harvested in northern woods compared to the ones where I hunt, corn and soybean. Taking into consideration that the meat was field dressed properly and handled properly throughout, the "gamey taste" is just venison. With that said, here is a recipe that I think you will enjoy very much.
10# recipe
2 Cups Ice Cold Water
5# Ground Venison
5# Ground Pork Butt
2 Tbls Salt
1 Tbls Ground white pepper
2 Tbls Rubbed sage
1 1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
1 Tbls Nutmeg
1 1/2 Tbls Thyme
1 Tbls Cayenne
1 Ground tsp Corriander
2 cups Ice cold water. Take all the spices and mix them well in the ice water then add that to the batch of meat. This insures that the spices get a chance to be more evenly spread throughout the meat versus trying to sprinkle them on there.
For maple flavor, use 1/4 cup Pure Maple syrup per 10#.
Either stuff into small Sheep casings or into game bags. If no game bags, wrap up in wax paper and Semi freeze and cut into patties and freeze again into serving size. Make sure all spices are ground very fine. I would try splitting this batch after all the spices are mixed in and make 5# the way it is and the other 5# mix in 1/8 cup pure maple syrup. Both are great. Also, you have to pay a bit more attention to this when cooking as they can burn faster than store bought as they are not bathing in grease.
