This is my first post so I hope everyone enjoys it!
Three elk in three years of living in CO and I'm just loving it. Though I spend most my time fly fishing I have been fortunate to have a freezer full of elk each year.
This website is great and I'm looking forward to sharing our similar passion of cooking good food for friends, family and of course for ourselves.
This is my second attempt at summer sausage and once again I learned more than expected but in the end I'm very satisfied with the results. If it didn't turn out the way it did I probably wouldn't have had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner today.
I typically don't mix much if anything with my elk meat because it is such a fantastic meat but this time I gave it a shot.
This was a 10lb batch of meat as follows:
8 lbs of fresh ground elk
2 lbs of ground beef 27% fat
Cured for 36 hrs
Hung for 6 to dry
smoked until 140° internal temp (6-7hrs)
Luckily it was a cold day & night because my electric smoker has no temp control besides 'on'.
I started the smoke at 100° and basically kept plugging cherry wood chunks in and moderated the heat up to 240° until the internal temp was achieved.
Ice bathed them for 7 min, dried off and hung in cold garage overnight (except for the cracked one - it went in my belly as soon as the freezer cooled it down:).
Vacuum sealed and froze.
*I definitely will be upgrading my smoker within the next 6 months so I can have even controlled smoke & heat.
Had a hot spot in the smoker and one of the SS got a little too much heat and had a small crack but still turned out great because I caught it in time.The casing came off nice and clean and the flavor was very subtle and meaty. I made one extra spicy for myself.
Sorry, no smoke in action shots - I was too busy making sure the heat didn't jump while enjoying CO microbrews..
Here's some pics:
Three elk in three years of living in CO and I'm just loving it. Though I spend most my time fly fishing I have been fortunate to have a freezer full of elk each year.
This website is great and I'm looking forward to sharing our similar passion of cooking good food for friends, family and of course for ourselves.
This is my second attempt at summer sausage and once again I learned more than expected but in the end I'm very satisfied with the results. If it didn't turn out the way it did I probably wouldn't have had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner today.
I typically don't mix much if anything with my elk meat because it is such a fantastic meat but this time I gave it a shot.
This was a 10lb batch of meat as follows:
8 lbs of fresh ground elk
2 lbs of ground beef 27% fat
Cured for 36 hrs
Hung for 6 to dry
smoked until 140° internal temp (6-7hrs)
Luckily it was a cold day & night because my electric smoker has no temp control besides 'on'.
I started the smoke at 100° and basically kept plugging cherry wood chunks in and moderated the heat up to 240° until the internal temp was achieved.
Ice bathed them for 7 min, dried off and hung in cold garage overnight (except for the cracked one - it went in my belly as soon as the freezer cooled it down:).
Vacuum sealed and froze.
*I definitely will be upgrading my smoker within the next 6 months so I can have even controlled smoke & heat.
Had a hot spot in the smoker and one of the SS got a little too much heat and had a small crack but still turned out great because I caught it in time.The casing came off nice and clean and the flavor was very subtle and meaty. I made one extra spicy for myself.
Sorry, no smoke in action shots - I was too busy making sure the heat didn't jump while enjoying CO microbrews..
Here's some pics:
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