# Venison & Elk Summer Sausage



## couger78 (May 28, 2012)

I was fortunate to receive from a friend at church a large amount of venison & elk, some ground, mostly steaks & the like. I thought I'd go ahead and make some summer sausage with the ground. Using Len Poli's 'venison SS' recipe. First the dry ingredients:

 
	

		
			
		

		
	








Had four pounds of ground venison and four pounds of ground elk. Looked quite lean.







To this lean meat, I added 1.5 pounds of fresh-ground pork fat:







Next came the dry ingredients. I mixed the NFDM & Fermento with water and poured this into the meat mix:







After a good, thorough mixing, this was stuffed into four 2.5" mahogany casings. The leftover from the stuffer I fried up (chef's sample!). It tasted really good! The apple-wood smoke will only improve what I thought was an excellent tasting sausage!

This was my_ first taste of venison_ in over 15 or 20 years.

*Into the smoker.* These will get about 3-4 hours of applewood pellet smoke.







After the smoke, a quick poach and we're about finished... *Oops!*....._*not quite!*_

Sometime during the 3-hour smoke, I must have had a huge temperature spike because when I opened the door to the smoker I saw this...







Four shriveled chubs hanging above pool of rendered fat!
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





I attribute the temp spike to my pellets catching fire and raising the internal temp of the smoker to well-past the 'fat out' stage.

I also blame myself for not keeping a diligent eye on the smoke (trying to do 10 other things) and so the results were less than satisfying. _Shriveled, grease-filled chubs_.....Our great dane got an unexpected treat.

Good news I've plenty more venison to use. So I'll give this another shot in the near future.

Kevin


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## gersus (May 28, 2012)

It was looking so good! Until the end... thanks for posting your less than excellent results, it's not perfect every time. Bummer it happened but at least it was only a small batch!


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## boykjo (May 28, 2012)

Looks arent everything....................................
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Joe


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## diggingdogfarm (May 28, 2012)

Bummer!!!!

I had this same thing happen with a batch of kielbasa not long ago when a controller went breezerk!!! :30:
Luckily, I salvaged the kielbasa by using it in boiled dinner.


~Martin


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