A while back a friend gave me a few pounds of elk which I’ve had in the freezer wondering what to do with it. I decided that as I’m not big on game meat, I would try and make elk summer sausage. While I have made my share of beef summer sausage and snack sticks, I’ve never made sausage with elk or any venison before, so I called on the experts here in the forum to help answer some questions.
Following guidance from the thread I started, I began by thawing and making sure the meat was well drained of any remaining blood. From there I cut up the roast and steaks to run through the grinder. After the first grind of the elk, I ground up some pork butt to use as a mix. After mixing the ground elk and pork with an 80/20 mix of elk to pork, I reground the mixture through a smaller grinding plate.
I asked about spices to use and the answers I got back was just use my normal beef summer sausage spice mix, which I did including Cure #1 and Bactofirm F-LC. After mixing in the spices, I stuffed the casings and into the fridge overnight.
After getting my MES40 up to temp, starting at about 125 degrees, I put in the sausages and after the first hour, began adding hickory smoke. Over the next 8 or so hours, I brought the smoker temp up to about 165 degrees. Once the sausage IT reached 150 degrees, I took them out and using the same method as my beef summer sausage, immersed them in an ice bath to bring the IT down to 100 degrees.
From there, I let them hang and bloom for about 3-4 hours and they filled back out nicely. Two of them are now vacuum packed and waiting to be delivered to friends. The third, I sliced up to test and make sure they are edible.
Thanks to everyone that helped with great advice and suggestions. I think it was a successful first smoke of elk meat for me.
Following guidance from the thread I started, I began by thawing and making sure the meat was well drained of any remaining blood. From there I cut up the roast and steaks to run through the grinder. After the first grind of the elk, I ground up some pork butt to use as a mix. After mixing the ground elk and pork with an 80/20 mix of elk to pork, I reground the mixture through a smaller grinding plate.
I asked about spices to use and the answers I got back was just use my normal beef summer sausage spice mix, which I did including Cure #1 and Bactofirm F-LC. After mixing in the spices, I stuffed the casings and into the fridge overnight.
After getting my MES40 up to temp, starting at about 125 degrees, I put in the sausages and after the first hour, began adding hickory smoke. Over the next 8 or so hours, I brought the smoker temp up to about 165 degrees. Once the sausage IT reached 150 degrees, I took them out and using the same method as my beef summer sausage, immersed them in an ice bath to bring the IT down to 100 degrees.
From there, I let them hang and bloom for about 3-4 hours and they filled back out nicely. Two of them are now vacuum packed and waiting to be delivered to friends. The third, I sliced up to test and make sure they are edible.
Thanks to everyone that helped with great advice and suggestions. I think it was a successful first smoke of elk meat for me.
