Elk Sausage Fat Source

[Dave Rowell]

I have killed at least one elk every year since 2000 and we have always done all our own processing. Hundreds of deer on top of that. That said, I have never added pork to my sausage for the fat source. We have always used beef suet. Yeah, I know. Everyone else uses pork butt. I've just never wanted to mix another meat into my elk. Besides, I get beef suet free. I'm ready to reconsider. I like Jimmy Dean sausage as well as anyone else, but I don't kill wild hogs. I would appreciate any comments, opinions, suggestions and recommendations.

 

[poacherjoe]

I don't put anything into my Elk or Deer meat ! If I am making sausage ,Bologna or Snack sticks I use pork butt or pork fat. to mix with the wild game. My butcher will give me all the pork trimmings I want for free .

 

[smokerjim]

I mainly use beef fat with my deer meat, usually 2lb fat per 8lb deer meat

 

[Dave Rowell]

I don't put anything into my Elk or Deer meat ! If I am making sausage ,Bologna or Snack sticks I use pork butt or pork fat. to mix with the wild game. My butcher will give me all the pork trimmings I want for free .

I'll have to ask the local butcher about pork trimmings. Thanks. When we grind, we definitely prefer a little more fat than is in elk meat, which is nil. Thanks!

 

[Dave Rowell]

I mainly use beef fat with my deer meat, usually 2lb fat per 8lb deer meat

That's what I've done for years. I'm reading on other discussions here that beef suet is better than beef fat. I tried kidney fat once and we didn't like it for burger. that's the only time I tried it, though.

 

[tallbm]

I have killed at least one elk every year since 2000 and we have always done all our own processing. Hundreds of deer on top of that. That said, I have never added pork to my sausage for the fat source. We have always used beef suet. Yeah, I know. Everyone else uses pork butt. I've just never wanted to mix another meat into my elk. Besides, I get beef suet free. I'm ready to reconsider. I like Jimmy Dean sausage as well as anyone else, but I don't kill wild hogs. I would appreciate any comments, opinions, suggestions and recommendations.

Hi there and welcome!

You will do fine with trimmed pork back fat. The butcher should be able to get it so you can buy it directly versus waiting for their scraps. If they have lots of pork fat scraps thats fine as well but they can order this in a box.

Anything you want with pork flavor like breakfast sausage should be fine to mix with pork fat.
I mix pork fat with venison meat for my Brats and other sausage and it comes out great!

When I want more beef flavor, which venison tastes more like, I use beef fat.

I live in TX where TX sausage is often both beef and pork so doing combos of venison, pork, and beef is not an uncommon thing here at all and comes out fine.

Just follow good practices and when you want something to resemble more of a pork product use pork fat. When more of a beef product use beef fat.

I hope this helps :)

 

[Dave Rowell]

Hi there and welcome!

You will do fine with trimmed pork back fat. The butcher should be able to get it so you can buy it directly versus waiting for their scraps. If they have lots of pork fat scraps thats fine as well but they can order this in a box.

Anything you want with pork flavor like breakfast sausage should be fine to mix with pork fat.
I mix pork fat with venison meat for my Brats and other sausage and it comes out great!

When I want more beef flavor, which venison tastes more like, I use beef fat.

I live in TX where TX sausage is often both beef and pork so doing combos of venison, pork, and beef is not an uncommon thing here at all and comes out fine.

Just follow good practices and when you want something to resemble more of a pork product use pork fat. When more of a beef product use beef fat.

I hope this helps :)

Thank you for the input! I'm eating Jimmy Dean sausage as we speak. I want to spend the effort to make sausage out of elk. I have a good blend to work with now. I just wanted to get input on pork fat, since we've always used beef fat. Do you ever use suet?

 

[tallbm]

Thank you for the input! I'm eating Jimmy Dean sausage as we speak. I want to spend the effort to make sausage out of elk. I have a good blend to work with now. I just wanted to get input on pork fat, since we've always used beef fat. Do you ever use suet?

No, I don't really have easy access to any. I use brisket fat (not the hard or stringy fat).

Living in TX I have access to a lot of well priced brisket throughout the year and I can usually save 2 pounds or so of good usable beef fat per brisket I buy. So I just save up like 6 pounds and then grind and use it when I need.

I do 80% meat and 20% fat so 6 pounds of beef brisket fat means I can make a total of 30 pounds of sausage that may need it.

I also grind up brisket for ground beef and it is about 80/20 naturally so that's my beef and beef fat journey.

I buy trimmed pork back fat as I have a couple of sources to get that and it works like a charm when I need pork fat for sausage!

 

[crazymoon]

DR, I suggest you try pork butt with your elk if you've never done it. IMHO it never covers up the taste of your game meat.

 

[BC Buck]

I prefer saving my brisket trimmings for grinding venison. Dont make me feel bad about paying for all that fat on a packer. Here in STL pork butts are selling for $1.89 LB. The good old days of .89 cents a LB are gone.

 

[Dave Rowell]

No, I don't really have easy access to any. I use brisket fat (not the hard or stringy fat).

Living in TX I have access to a lot of well priced brisket throughout the year and I can usually save 2 pounds or so of good usable beef fat per brisket I buy. So I just save up like 6 pounds and then grind and use it when I need.

I do 80% meat and 20% fat so 6 pounds of beef brisket fat means I can make a total of 30 pounds of sausage that may need it.

I also grind up brisket for ground beef and it is about 80/20 naturally so that's my beef and beef fat journey.

I buy trimmed pork back fat as I have a couple of sources to get that and it works like a charm when I need pork fat for sausage!

Thank you!

 

[Dave Rowell]

DR, I suggest you try pork butt with your elk if you've never done it. IMHO it never covers up the taste of your game meat.

I guess I just don't like to pay for meat or fat to add when I have so much free from elk. I should just get over it! Thanks.

 

[tallbm]

I guess I just don't like to pay for meat or fat to add when I have so much free from elk. I should just get over it! Thanks.

Nothing wrong with your thought process there. I am the exact same way.

I don't like mixing other meat with my game meat. The solution for me is to ONLY mix fat with the game meat so that I'm not just buying meat when I already have a ton of meat hahahaha.

I never buy pork butts and mix with my game meat. I only buy the fat.... unless I'm doing something like my Texas Hot Gut sausage which calls for beef (or venison) and pork anyhow. That is the one exception. All my other sausage is my game meat and beef/pork fat only per what the sausage flavor profile may call for :)

 

[archeryrob]

I use pork fat with venison for sausage and liverwurst. The butcher near me sells pork back fat for $.50 a pound.

 

[Dave Rowell]

DR, I suggest you try pork butt with your elk if you've never done it. IMHO it never covers up the taste of your game meat.

I have now done that (pork belly) extensively. It makes a good sausage product. Something else I have now been doing is buying good, locally packaged grassfed beef fat. (I actually kill elk on ranches around there.)the fat costs $2/pound and they deliver it to my small town here in Montana. It ends up only being about 40 cents/pound and is a much better quality fat than I was getting for free at the grocers. We like the end results for hamburger. I don't have a good grass fed source of pork in cattle country here, so we limit buying that.

 

[tallbm]

I have now done that (pork belly) extensively. It makes a good sausage product. Something else I have now been doing is buying good, locally packaged grassfed beef fat. (I actually kill elk on ranches around there.)the fat costs $2/pound and they deliver it to my small town here in Montana. It ends up only being about 40 cents/pound and is a much better quality fat than I was getting for free at the grocers. We like the end results for hamburger. I don't have a good grass fed source of pork in cattle country here, so we limit buying that.

The venison I get each year taste like really really lean beef so when I mix with beef fat it is very beefy in flavor all around. I like using the beef fat for making sandwich meat that is beefy like my pastrami or even my bologna.

I'm usually using my saved brisket fat but there have been zero normal brisket sales so far in 2025 so not much extra beef fat this year. I do have 2 briskets from last year vac sealed and in the freezer so if I break those bad boys out I'll get about 4 pounds of beef fat which is good.

Fingers crossed that I see 1 actual brisket sale this year here in brisket land lol.

 

[fumarone]

This question is a little off, but you guys got me thinking about cooking venison w/pork fat, and venison w/beef fat. Can you have a rare venison burger if it's made with pork fat? Since most pork is cooked to a higher temp than beef. I was just curious.

 

[tallbm]

This question is a little off, but you guys got me thinking about cooking venison w/pork fat, and venison w/beef fat. Can you have a rare venison burger if it's made with pork fat? Since most pork is cooked to a higher temp than beef. I was just curious.

Hi there and welcome!

Well if you follow the USDA guidelines for ground beef or pork is to cook to 160F internal temp or higher.

The USDA guideline for whole muscle pork and whole muscle venison is 145F internal temp or higher.

So cooking venison burger or any of the other ground meat to rare is technically below guidelines. For myself, If I were to do it "rarer" than recommended guidelines I would still try to at least hit the whole muscle temp... though its not an apples to apples guideline and comparison.

I mix ground venison with either-or beef fat or pork fat and make burger with it. I grill at a hot temp to get that good sear but I don't cook the crap out of them as venison cooks up fast. Even with my regular beef burgers get a good sear and don't cook too hard either but rarely is there much if any pink them.

Now most of my life I process my own venison so I know it goes from whole muscle to grind within hours of time and then into ground meat bags or vac seal bags within 24 hours but refrigerated well during the whole process when not being worked.

So I would have no problem cooking my own ground venison to a "rarer" temp but it still feel like no matter what, you throw a venison patty on a grill and look away for 2 seconds to look back and find it about cooked lol :D

The main thing is bee safe with your food so you enjoy it and don't end up sick and still make something tasty. I hope this info helps some

 

[fumarone]

Hi there and welcome!

Well if you follow the USDA guidelines for ground beef or pork is to cook to 160F internal temp or higher.

The USDA guideline for whole muscle pork and whole muscle venison is 145F internal temp or higher.

So cooking venison burger or any of the other ground meat to rare is technically below guidelines. For myself, If I were to do it "rarer" than recommended guidelines I would still try to at least hit the whole muscle temp... though its not an apples to apples guideline and comparison.

I mix ground venison with either-or beef fat or pork fat and make burger with it. I grill at a hot temp to get that good sear but I don't cook the crap out of them as venison cooks up fast. Even with my regular beef burgers get a good sear and don't cook too hard either but rarely is there much if any pink them.

Now most of my life I process my own venison so I know it goes from whole muscle to grind within hours of time and then into ground meat bags or vac seal bags within 24 hours but refrigerated well during the whole process when not being worked.

So I would have no problem cooking my own ground venison to a "rarer" temp but it still feel like no matter what, you throw a venison patty on a grill and look away for 2 seconds to look back and find it about cooked lol :D

The main thing is bee safe with your food so you enjoy it and don't end up sick and still make something tasty. I hope this info helps some

Thank you for the info. I like putting frozen burgers/venison burgers on the grill so the outside has a sear, and the inside is light red/hot pink. I just might change my ways. I do grind my own venison and have only added beef fat with it.

 

[Dave Rowell]

Hi there and welcome!

Well if you follow the USDA guidelines for ground beef or pork is to cook to 160F internal temp or higher.

The USDA guideline for whole muscle pork and whole muscle venison is 145F internal temp or higher.

So cooking venison burger or any of the other ground meat to rare is technically below guidelines. For myself, If I were to do it "rarer" than recommended guidelines I would still try to at least hit the whole muscle temp... though its not an apples to apples guideline and comparison.

I mix ground venison with either-or beef fat or pork fat and make burger with it. I grill at a hot temp to get that good sear but I don't cook the crap out of them as venison cooks up fast. Even with my regular beef burgers get a good sear and don't cook too hard either but rarely is there much if any pink them.

Now most of my life I process my own venison so I know it goes from whole muscle to grind within hours of time and then into ground meat bags or vac seal bags within 24 hours but refrigerated well during the whole process when not being worked.

So I would have no problem cooking my own ground venison to a "rarer" temp but it still feel like no matter what, you throw a venison patty on a grill and look away for 2 seconds to look back and find it about cooked lol :D

The main thing is bee safe with your food so you enjoy it and don't end up sick and still make something tasty. I hope this info helps some

I used to be the food safety "police" registered dietitian at nursing homes and hospitals. for many years. No way would I let them do that! But, for us, I want mine a little pink. We do our own game processing and we're very particular. (My wife fails to understand that well-done is essentially a sin! LOL) I would not cook burger I buy from the store to less than the recommended minimum temperature There is too much risk that it was exposed to e-coli, etc. And, believe me, it is often not handled well.

Here's something to think about, though. People might be really careful with internal temps, but not so careful with cooking utensils and dishes. For example, if you put a raw patty on the grill with a spatula, or you sure the spatula got hot enough to kill bacteria from the raw juices when you take it off the grill? Possibly. But if someone puts a cooked burger on the same plate the raw meat was brought out with, it's a big risk.

My wife and I killed two cow elk at once this year in late August. I had 350 pounds of homemade ice in Ziplocs with me and knew I would drive up close to the kill to retrieve it. I had already asked someone to help us with the retrieval and field dressing in exchange for one of the elk for him, if that occurred. I explained how we needed to ice pack it quickly in sleds in the trucks.

He refused to even skin and quarter his in that warm weather. I was very careful and controlling with our elk. I watched him lay his meat directly on the bed of his truck that was caked in blood with his footprints in the blood. He also used the same knife for dirty jobs and cutting off meat when we hung it and skinned it on my meat pole at my home. The whole time he was showing me "tricks" he learned when he was trained by a butcher. I already knew those "tricks" from 40 years of processing my own game. I felt like telling him, here's a trick for you. "Cook the hell out of your meat, since it's definitely contaminated!"

The contamination is the unknown factor sometimes.