Binders

[Mark684]

Are binders needed when venison sausage and snack sticks, been using hi mountain seasonings and finish product seems a little dry, internal temp was 152 when pulled from smoker, and into ice bath.

 

[SmokyMose]

Are you adding any fat? I've never done anything with venison but I understand it's pretty lean.
The binder is to bind the meats to the fats. With no fats there's nothing to bind....

 

[crazymoon]

M684, I make venison snack sticks frequently and never use a binder. I do however make sure I have a good meat fat ratio . Instead of pork back fat I usually use pork butt and go 70/30 venison to pork. If I use straight fat back its 75/25 but I usually do that only for dry cured products.

 

[zwiller]

Nope, binders not needed but you want about 20% fat minimum for a good product. Most guys skimp on fat on venison and sure it is healthier but quality takes a hit.

 

[Mark684]

Nope, binders not needed but you want about 20% fat minimum for a good product. Most guys skimp on fat on venison and sure it is healthier but quality takes a hit.

Nope, binders not needed but you want about 20% fat minimum for a good product. Most guys skimp on fat on venison and sure it is healthier but quality takes a hit.

I’m doing 50%venison/50%pork butt does that give me enough fat

 

[DanMcG]

I’m doing 50%venison/50%pork butt does that give me enough fat

that would give ya 10% fat

 

[indaswamp]

I’m doing 50%venison/50%pork butt does that give me enough fat

No, not enough fat as Dan mentioned above. Take the weight of the venison portion and multiply by 0.20.... that will tell you how much pork fat you need to add. Now take the 50% pork butt portion and subtract out the weight of the fat you just calculated, and add that to the pork portion of your mix. Now you have the 20-25% fat that comes with the pork butt PLUS pure pork fat to account for the lean venison.

So, if you are doing 40# of venison/pork sausage 50/50; 20# of venison X .2 is 4# of fat. 20# pork butt minus 4# is 16# pork butt. So you now have:

20# lean venison
16# pork butt 80/20 or 75/25
4# 100% pork fat

Now you have at least 20% pork fat in your mix and the texture will be right and won't be dry and crumbly.

 

[daveomak]

"STANLEY MARIANSKI"​

Why Make Sausages?​

Because there aren’t many quality sausages left around. To get a top-quality sausage you need to:

• find a meat store that was established by a trained sausage maker from Europe and hope that he passed his skills to someone else
• buy quality products online. The best sausages carry the European Certificate of Origin, however, most of them are available only in Europe
• make sausages yourself

Why Can You Make Better Sausages than a Commercial Producer?​

1. Because you can select better meat. Good meat makes a good sausage. Commercial producers cannot afford luxury of choosing best meats because they produce sausages to make money, they don’t do it for pleasure. Every meat cut, fat, offal meat, skins, including machine scraped meat from bones is utilized to save money in order to come up with the lowest price. And that translates into higher profits.
2. 
   
3. You don’t need to pump meat with water. A terrible but legal practice is pumping water into the meat. Although an enormous amount of sausages is sold in USA, nevertheless it is one type of sausage that gets most credit for sales. And this is an emulsified sausage: hot dog, wiener, frankfurter or bologna. In order to produce emulsified paste, the meat must be very finely chopped in bowl cutters. As the bowl turns slowly around a set of sharp round knives placed above cuts meat by rotating thousands of times per minute. The resulting friction will dull the knives and will cook the meat so in order to protect the equipment a “certain” amount of crushed ice or icy cold water is introduced to lower the temperature. In order to prevent this water from leaking out “phosphates” are added and the water is locked inside the meat. If only 10% of ice is added, that would be fine, however, “phosphates” can bind even 50% of water. This is the reason why mass-produced frankfurters are made so cheaply as the customer is buying water without knowing it. Adding water dilutes the flavor of the meat – add water to chicken soup or tea and see the difference. Those sausages except the shape have nothing in common with frankfurters or other emulsified sausages that were originally produced from pork and veal in Europe. The difference in taste and flavor is like a difference between the night and the day.
4. 
   
5. You don't need to use chemicals. Sausages do not need chemicals, the meat, salt, spices and time is all that is needed.
6. 
   
7. You can create a new recipe at will and you are in full control. A hobbyist can create or change a recipe at will. He can improvise and introduce new ingredients that he likes, his imagination is the limit to the number of recipes he can create. A meat plant cannot afford to take a risk of making sausages with blueberries as supermarket might be hesitant to order it.

 

[zwiller]

Another reason comes to mind (and a good one). You can make sausage you simply cannot buy. IE, I absolutely LOVE weisswurst and NONE to be found here. Thuringer brat? Good luck find that one at the store too. I am ecstatic to have WW in the freezer and owe it to the great folks here that helped me along the way.