Elk to fat ratio.

[12ring]

Hello. I’m not new to smoking meat but I’m very green on making sausage. I smoked 20 lbs of SS years ago and brats as well. Both came out great. I used Hi mountain kits.

I called in a nice bull elk for my buddy in September so now we have a ton of meat to get through.

Field photo up next so don’t continue reading if you don’t like dead animals.

The processor added 20% beef fat to all of his ground meat. Will it be fine too use that 80/20 ratio to make summer sausage and snack sticks? Last time I did SS I used pork fat. I’m going to go the easy route and use Hi mountain Seasoning kit because it available at my local Cabelas. Thanks for any info.

 

[sawhorseray]

Wow, beautiful bull and a nice load of high quality meat, big Like! I had cow tags about a 15 years back, made the best Italian sausage of my life, cut with about 30% porkbutt, PS Seasonings spice mix from Cabelas. RAY

 

[indaswamp]

Very Nice Bull elk! Great shot placement! As far as the sausage goes, I recommend no less than 20% fat. If you use pork butt for a blended sausage, 20% of the weight of elk meat needs to be pure pork back fat. figure this number, then subtract that from the amount of pork butt. Add the pure fat in it's place.

For example, for a 50/50 blend 20# batch, 10# elk meat....2# pork fat....so you need 8# pork butt. The pork butt is about 80/20 meat to fat ratio.

 

[thirdeye]

Dang, you guys are not messing around with that archery hunt, nice bull!!

I don't make many snack sticks, and my bologna is similar to summer sausage.... I add some pork so my fat ratio is about 25%. If you opt for fresh sausage I will mix elk or venison burger 60:40 with ground pork butt. This is good for any of the breakfast or Farm type of forulations, it still retains some elk flavor, but stays moist even in bulk patties. If someone is shy about wild game flavor I'll go 50:50 and make a spicier sausage like Italian or Chorizo.

 

[Bearcarver]

Awesome!!
You got great help already---Above.
So I'll just say---NICE BULL !!!
I haven't had Elk in Ages!
Like.

Bear

 

[jcam222]

WOW that’s one nice bull elk. I’d love a freezer full of that.

 

[forktender]

Damn!!! That is a stud bull right there, nice work on the calling and your buddies shot was perfect, which is no easy task when you have a big bull wanting to mount you worse that you want to mount it.

Try adding 20% bacon to some burger, it turns out some KILLER elk bacon burgers, just add cheese and some morels after its pan fried and a nice sourdough roll, and you're set to grub down on a KILLER E.B.B!!!
(Elk, Bacon, Burger).
Dan

 

[jcam222]

Damn!!! That is a stud bull right there, nice work on the calling and your buddies shot was perfect, which is no easy task when you have a big bull wanting to mount you worse that you want to mount it.

Try adding 20% bacon to some burger, it turns out some KILLER elk bacon burgers, just add cheese and some morels after its pan fried and a nice sourdough roll, and you're set to grub down on a KILLER E.B.B!!!
(Elk, Bacon, Burger).
Dan

Morels, Cheese, elk and bacon , I’d call that a heaven burger

 

[foamheart]

My rule of thumb, add 10% more fat to any wild game sausage recipe. They don't have the same fat content. There are a few things that require more, but 10% always was a good place to start for me.
Everytime I see a picture like that I think two things, gonna take a new house to hang that head in and Damn, I bitched about packing a mule deer out. LOL

 

[tallbm]

Hello. I’m not new to smoking meat but I’m very green on making sausage. I smoked 20 lbs of SS years ago and brats as well. Both came out great. I used Hi mountain kits.

I called in a nice bull elk for my buddy in September so now we have a ton of meat to get through.
View attachment 512615
Field photo up next so don’t continue reading if you don’t like dead animals.
View attachment 512616
The processor added 20% beef fat to all of his ground meat. Will it be fine too use that 80/20 ratio to make summer sausage and snack sticks? Last time I did SS I used pork fat. I’m going to go the easy route and use Hi mountain Seasoning kit because it available at my local Cabelas. Thanks for any info.

Nice job and amazing looking bull!

I do 80/20 with all my venison sausage as well as my wild hog sausage (most have no fat on them).
I don't see you having any problem with what the processor gave you back as long as they used 20% beef fat and not just beef.

I do 80/20 - venison/beef fat for my venison pastrami sandwich meat and smoke it in loaves/rectangles and it comes out amazing. I can tell you first hand you will be fine following normal sausage practices. I make my venison pastrami sandwich meat the same way I make sausage I just don't tuff in casings so see the following as my real life experience you can lean on. I've made at least 80 pounds of this stuff or more in my lifetime :)

Pastrami Loaf with QView!!!

I did a Pastrami Loaf today and WOW!!!! Don't let the word "Loaf" fool you. It's more like a Sausage and not really like a Meatloaf. Pics first and write up after. ************************************************** [EDIT: added link to recipe I used] Hi guys I figured I would make it...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

Now your Elk venison with beef fat will taste very much like beef. My white tail, axis, and black buck antelope all taste beefy without the beef fat and even more like beef with it.

I think that will go just fine for summer sausage and would work well for bologna and ground meat pastrami type sausages and my Brats are amazing!

If you want to do Franks, Polish, etc. then it would benefit from the use of Pork Fat. I do 80/20 wild hog/pork back fat and those sausages come out amazing. I even have taken them to an IT of 165F to handle potential micro parasites since wild hogs get into all kinds of stuff.
This works as well when I've bought pork sirloin roasts and ground with pork back fat to go 80/20 and make Franks also.

Bottom line you should be fine 80/20 with your Elk and beef fat and as others are talking you can also go 80/20 pork fat and I would not go below 20% fat but you can always go higher.
Just nail the sausage making and smoking processes and you will be fine :)

I hope this info helps and if you like pastrami feel free to try that ground venison pastrami recipe out :)

 

[DanMcG]

I'd add 20% pork trim at a minimum.

 

[mike243]

I myself don't want any amount over 20% fat for summer sausage and don't want to mix the 2 different fats ,either 1 or the other, tried the 20-25% bacon 1 time and the patties wouldn't stay together, tasted good but I skip the added bacon and just fry it and add.

 

[thirdeye]

Everytime I see a picture like that I think two things, gonna take a new house to hang that head in and Damn, I bitched about packing a mule deer out. LOL

One of my friends has a lifetime collection of North American trophies in his house and office, but started making annual trips to Africa five years ago. We're silently waiting for him to buy another house.

 

[12ring]

Thanks for the compliments on the bull and for the help with the fat ratio.

 

[12ring]

We ended up making 30 pounds of SS when green chili and pepper jack. Overall it came out great. One batch had more cheese than the other. Could have used more green chili as well.

Made 20 pounds of brats as well. Those came out good but next time we’ll use s higher fat content. I would also like to use a better quality casing than what comes in the high mountain kit.

I would say it was successful but we could definitely improve off it.

 

[tallbm]

View attachment 513072View attachment 513073View attachment 513074View attachment 513075View attachment 513076
We ended up making 30 pounds of SS when green chili and pepper jack. Overall it came out great. One batch had more cheese than the other. Could have used more green chili as well.

Made 20 pounds of brats as well. Those came out good but next time we’ll use s higher fat content. I would also like to use a better quality casing than what comes in the high mountain kit.

I would say it was successful but we could definitely improve off it.

Wow that all looks great!
Welcome to the world of sausage making, you will only make things better from here :D

Yeah those sausage casings that come in the little vacuum sealed packs are the ones they scrape from the bottom of the barrel. Those packs are usually called "home packs" if I remember the term correctly.

If you buy a "hank" of sausage casings you get the good ones. I think the home packs are like all the odds and ends that don't make it into the "hank" packages of sausage castings. A hank is a considerable amount too like at least good for 100+ pounds of sausage.

I prefer "pre-tubed" casings which are all good quality and come on a plastic tube so you can quick load them onto your stuffer.

Finally a great practice brought to my attention by boykjo is if you soak your casings in water in the fridge for a week they become silky smooth and pliable making them a billion times easier to work with so that will improve the handling of any casing. Try this as you fight to use up the rest of your home pack... if there are any left.

Keep it up and congrats on all that amazing elk sausage! :D