Antelope Summer Sausage via DISCO

[hoity toit]

OFM Disco got me on this. I am making some antelope summer sausage using some of Disco's simple basic recipe however this one will be Apple Bleu Cheese Summer Sausage. Full pictures and step by steps to be posted as it happens, Stay Tuned. Hope to have this 100% finished Sunday or Monday. Thank you for your support another thanks to our Veterans who fought to keep us a free Nation and also to active military who are doing the same. Scroll on down for the rest of the post and the follow up pictures.....

 

[jcam222]

You had me at Bleu cheese, in for the ride.

 

[forktender]

You had me at Speed Goat.
I haven't hunted them in almost 40 years. In our house our favorite meats are in this order. Elk, Speed Goat, home, home raised corn and grass fed heifer Waterfowl and pork.

 

[hoity toit]

Ok here we go, I had antelope meat given to me by a fellow hunter and thought this would be a good challenge to make. I used 18 lbs black buck antelope and 20% pork for a total of 21 pounds. My store bought seasoning had freeze dried green apples in it and it called for adding 4oz of blue cheese per 5 lbs so for me that was 12oz of blue cheese. I had my doubts. One I am thinking that is way too much cheese and two, surely this is going to melt and be a mess. Anyway after gently hand mixing and adding 4 tsp #1 cure it was time to get down to business and get-r-done. The suffing was done on my 11lb vertical stuffer using the largest tube, it is like 1-1/2" or so. It does not take long to make a run as summer sausage averages about 3lbs a chub in the fibrous casings. I started out in the MES40 at 140* for roughly 2 hrs then poured the pecan pellets in the Amaz-n tube smoker and let er rip. Bumped temp every hour by 10 degrees stopping at 180. When the IT hit 156-168 I pulled them and into a cold water bath for about 30 mins then hung up overnight in the shop to bloom out. Next morning I placed in the refer for 48 hrs and then sliced a few and vac sealed the rest. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I might add the cheese did NOT melt , I was very surprised on that. As far as the taste the apple compliments the blue cheese and vice versa. The mix was Excalibur #0370000 Blue Cheese and Apple.

 

[Winterrider]

That summer sausage looks fantastic.

 

[oberst]

I would have never thought of blue cheese! How would you rate it compared to a good standard summer sausage?

 

[tallbm]

Man that is awesome!

Black Buck Antelope has a darker meat color (I can even see it in the grind) and little more of an iron flavor to it. Going with a summer sausage + apple + blue cheese combo sounds amazing with the taste of the animal!

Next time I take a female I think I will turn that whole little sucker in the same kind of summer sausage. Thanks for the inspiration!