Venison breakfast sausage

[stone5674]

I have learned a lot about making trail bologna and snack sticks, and I have made it until it's coming out my ears! Now I need to use up some deer meat for breakfast sausage. I have been making breakfast venison sausage for years but never took it too serious. I am now documenting everything I do so I can pinpoint the details that produce the best sausage. I am open to any and all suggestions and here are a few questions I have.

1. I've made sausage that tastes great but is a bit dry/crumbly. Any thoughts?
2. I used to grind 10 pounds of deer meat, season it with Backwoods or A.C. Leggs, and then mix 50/50 with a fatty sausage like Bob Evans. I want to avoid the cost of buying the pre-made sausage.
3. Beef fat or pork fat?
4. Maybe I should buy a boston butt when it's on sale for $1.59/pound, grind it and freeze it to mix with my deer meat?
5. Any good seasonings to try?

Thanks!

 

[Rafter H BBQ]

As far as the seasoning goes… give this a try! A great recipe from pops6927 (RIP). A lot of folks here have tried the recipe he shared of his Dads with great results.

Fassett's Breakfast Sausage Seasoning

I had to make up a new batch of breakfast sausage seasoning, and I follow a recipe by weight: 8 oz. salt 2 oz. black pepper 1 oz. sage put in ziploc and shake thoroughly, then use ½ oz. per lb. of meat However, this time, for those that don't have scales, I also dumped the contents of each...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[slavikborisov]

I have learned a lot about making trail bologna and snack sticks, and I have made it until it's coming out my ears! Now I need to use up some deer meat for breakfast sausage. I have been making breakfast venison sausage for years but never took it too serious. I am now documenting everything I do so I can pinpoint the details that produce the best sausage. I am open to any and all suggestions and here are a few questions I have.

1. I've made sausage that tastes great but is a bit dry/crumbly. Any thoughts?
2. I used to grind 10 pounds of deer meat, season it with Backwoods or A.C. Leggs, and then mix 50/50 with a fatty sausage like Bob Evans. I want to avoid the cost of buying the pre-made sausage.
3. Beef fat or pork fat?
4. Maybe I should buy a boston butt when it's on sale for $1.59/pound, grind it and freeze it to mix with my deer meat?
5. Any good seasonings to try?

Thanks!

1. some water and binder fat should help see answer 2. also don't over cook breakfast sausage past 165F internal


2. For breakfast sausage try 25-30% pork back fat. Also I add some non fat dry milk powder 10g/kg to mine and 10% or 100ml/kg water.
salt 15-20g/kg,
white or black pepper 4 g/kg
onion powder 2g/kg
garlic powder 1g/kg
sugar or dextrose if using close to the 18-20g/kg of salt .. in this case i would add 5-10g/kg of sugar or dextrose to offset the saltiness.
then its up to you what you want 1-2g/kg of whatever aromatic you want weather it be sage, thyme, rosemary, celery powder, mace, nutmeg, ginger etc...the list goes on and on just choose 1-3 combination of something you enjoy and work from there. i always add at least 2g/kg of MSG and lately .5g/kg of hickory smoked powder...mix till very sticky and stuff.

3. pork fat

4. if using Boston butt mix equal amount of venison. 15lb pork butt add 15 lb of venison

5. i only make mine own as i can control level of saltness and different aromatics. i like 17g/kg of salt with 7g/kg of dextrose but you play with weather amount you want for you taste and liking. if you dont have a gram scale get one....and convert your lbs of meat to kilograms and itll make life really easy when making you own recieps using metric system.

 

[crankybuzzard]

If the sausage is dry and crumbly you may not be mixing it long enough to extract the proteins.

The 50/50 mix of butt and venison is a good plan. The recipe from Pop's is a great starting point and you can experiment from there.

 

[Brokenhandle]

By adding water don't think more is better... too much water can make it crumbly.

Ryan

 

[zwiller]

Dry and crumbly to me is lack of fat and breakfast sausage might the fattiest of all sausage.

The simplicity/versatility/cost of 50/50 venison/butt is pretty hard to beat.

You said you liked the brats, there's TONS of styles. Here's a sampler.
https://www.owensbbq.com/collections/brat-mixes

 

[chopsaw]

Maybe I should buy a boston butt when it's on sale for $1.59/pound, grind it and freeze it to mix with my deer meat?

That's how I used to do it . Don't hunt anymore , but I always mixed it 50/50 with ground pork butt .
Get the salt and fat right and you should be good .
Like Ryan said already , watch adding water . That's a fast way to dry it out or crumble .

 

[indaswamp]

Most fresh sasuages use 3% added moisture. I agree with NFDM powder in breakfast sausages. I also agree the Breakfast sausages usually run higher on fat content.

 

[millerbuilds]

Lot of great recipes above...throwing mine out there as well.

5LBS Ground Venison
3 TBS Fennel Seed
5 Tsp Kosher Salt
4 Tsp Ground Black Pepper
3 Tsp Dried Thyme
3 Tsp dried Sage
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1 Tsp Garlic Powder
2 TBS Brown Sugar (optional)
1-3 Tsp red pepper flakes (add to or cut back based upon spice level desired) Or a few dashes of Cayenne pepper
2.5 LBS Ground Pork Shoulder (untrimmed)

Mix, seal and refrigerate for 24-48 hours
Vacuum Seal and freeze or Cook up.