Venison Sausage Question

[jftx]

I would like to make some venison sausage to share with family. I want to do some summer sausage and maybe some bratwurst and kielbasa. Can I do it without nitrates or nitrites or is that a fundamental requirement? Can I, instead, salt cure it? I have looked for several recipes and they all include commercial cure or nitrates of some kind. Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have a favorite recipe you don't mind sharing, please feel free to do so. Whatever recipe I use, I plan to smoke the sausage in my MES40.

 

[piker]

I would like to make some venison sausage to share with family. I want to do some summer sausage and maybe some bratwurst and kielbasa. Can I do it without nitrates or nitrites or is that a fundamental requirement? Can I, instead, salt cure it? I have looked for several recipes and they all include commercial cure or nitrates of some kind. Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have a favorite recipe you don't mind sharing, please feel free to do so. Whatever recipe I use, I plan to smoke the sausage in my MES40.

I make a lot of smoked sausage and Due to the threat of bacteria I always use nitrite. If your sausage is under 140F for too long the botulism starts. If you smoke hotter you can fat out the sausage and it gets very dry. Just google it because there is a lot of info out there on the subject. I just do not think it is worth it. Thks Piker

 

[tallbm]

I would like to make some venison sausage to share with family. I want to do some summer sausage and maybe some bratwurst and kielbasa. Can I do it without nitrates or nitrites or is that a fundamental requirement? Can I, instead, salt cure it? I have looked for several recipes and they all include commercial cure or nitrates of some kind. Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have a favorite recipe you don't mind sharing, please feel free to do so. Whatever recipe I use, I plan to smoke the sausage in my MES40.

piker provided good info.

To answer your question you can make "Fresh" bratwurst or "Fresh" kielbasa without any cure (nitrates/nitrites).
Being "Fresh" means the meat is raw and you will cook it on the grill. This is like the Johnsiville brats you see in the meat section that you grill.

Summer sausage will pretty much need cure because there really is no such thing as "Fresh" summer sausage.

The whole purpose of cure is to keep the bacteria from doing it's thing and then killing you.
The process of smoking sausage means you smoke at temps ranging from 100F-170F for hours upon hours. Cure will fight the bacteria since those temps are basically perfect for bacteria to multiply and do bad things.
When used in the proper amounts cure should be of no issue.

Also those "uncurred" products you see at the store usually use celery juice powder which is packed full of nitrites. So they didn't use "curing salt" they instead used a different substance that does EXACTLY the same thing as cure because it is nothing but nitrites. This is how places make cured meat products without using "cure" lol

I hope this info helps :)

 

[hillbillyrkstr]

Yup what they said.

 

[JckDanls 07]

same as they all said except one thing... you don't have to google anything... just use the search feature at the top of each page... There is way more info right here at SMF then you can ever read ...

 

[indaswamp]

You 'could' salt cure it, but the amount of salt you would need to use for anti-bacterial properties would make the meat too salty to eat on it's own.

 

[archeryrob]

Listen to Inda, he does a lot of this and salt curing is made to wash off, like on hams and you won't be able to wash it out of a sausage or bologna. A Virginia ham might be typical of this and you soak and resoak them. I have found of all the deer bologna recipes I have tried, many suggest 5Tbsp of Tenderquick per 5# and its a bit salty to the taste for us . I tried one of Nepas recipes one time and it had 3 Tbsp of salt and 1 tsp of #1 pink instacure and that was much better, for our tastes at least. I've edited my other recipes to include the same cure style.

Look around here and find recipes you might like and document everything you make and what you think of it. I use excel and copy a 10# recipe and reduce them down to 2.5# or 2# or what ever I can for trials. Then edit after tasting them. You'll only dial in your recipes IF you keep proper records.

Many cut with pork, but my wife wants reduced sodium, so I cut 50/50 with 73% ground beef. This gives me about 14% total fat content which is good. You might want 20% for sausages.

Here is one I copied off of here. I forgot to write down who shared it so i can't credit the original guy. I tried to look it back up but couldn't find it, it got lots of nice reviews. Its a nice mild summer sausage to base your other recipes on or just get you started. I changed the cure as I spoke of before, but you can change to 1Tbsp of Tenderquick per pound if you'd like.

 

[indaswamp]

One caveat- IF you will be hot smoking or grilling the links, you can forgo the cure and make the links as fresh sausage because they will be cooked within the 4 hour window and out of the 40-140 danger zone within 4 hours. I personally do not hot smoke my smoke sausages. I warm smoke them and step the temp up to 170* prevent fat out.

 

[jftx]

Thanks for all the replies and information. I'm glad I asked because there is definitely some good info here. I had not considered cutting with beef or pork. I was thinking I would just smoke some deer meat and call it good because the ground venison I have already has fat added to it. If thats the case, should I use a leaner ground beef? I do. plan on warm smoking like Indaswamp said. I think I saw a sticky on it a couple of days ago.

Also, if I make brats or kielbasa and don't plan to eat it right away, can I freeze them and be safe?

 

[archeryrob]

Yes you can freeze it raw for cooking later.

You mixed fat in the deer already, what kind and how much? I hope you didn't mix deer fat in with it. Deer fat is good for bullet lube but its not much to eat. I think 13 - 14% is good for bologna and you might want to be be at least that and maybe up to 20% for sausages. I tried making deer sausage 15 years back and the wife argued with me about not adding pork fat to it and it being just plain deer. I told her you had too, see said it will be leaner and I just gave up and did it her way. We froze them raw and it was the most dry crap I have ever tried to eat. You had to choke it down. So, the dog ate well the next few months.

 

[jftx]

Yes you can freeze it raw for cooking later.

You mixed fat in the deer already, what kind and how much? I hope you didn't mix deer fat in with it. Deer fat is good for bullet lube but its not much to eat. I think 13 - 14% is good for bologna and you might want to be be at least that and maybe up to 20% for sausages. I tried making deer sausage 15 years back and the wife argued with me about not adding pork fat to it and it being just plain deer. I told her you had too, see said it will be leaner and I just gave up and did it her way. We froze them raw and it was the most dry crap I have ever tried to eat. You had to choke it down. So, the dog ate well the next few months.

Thanks for looking out and making sure I do it right. I mixed in Pork fat. It’s about 80/20

 

[archeryrob]

with 20% fat you can make sausage with that right now and the right spices. I make Bologna at 14% but I don't think there would be any problem at 20%.

 

[jftx]

with 20% fat you can make sausage with that right now and the right spices. I make Bologna at 14% but I don't think there would be any problem at 20%.

I appreciate all the help. I think i will go ahead and add some 90/10 beef to it so I can make a little more.

 

[archeryrob]

You should end up at 50/50 deer beef with 15% fat and be perfect for Bologna. Now just choose a recipe you like and get to it.

Watch your smoking temp and a lot say stay under 170 but you can get to 180 in the smoker, but be careful and higher and you get fat Out. The internal fat will melt and run to the heat and congeal on the underside of the casing. You can clean it off and still eat it but the loss of fat will make it dry. I have years back got lazy and barely wet my wood chips on a gas unit and the chips caught fire and the unit hit 300 for 15 minutes before I noticed and that was some damn dry bologna. You can stay at 170 smoker temp and if the meat only hits 145 it has to stay there for 10 minutes (or more) and 150 for 5 (or more) and 158 for no time. The higher you cooker the more chance it can get dryer. I haven't done the 145 yet because of the wife, but I have been doing the 150° without tell her and its all good and everyone loves the moisture content. ;) You can use lower Internal Temps. IT to the meat, but it requires a longer rest time period to make sure all bateria is dead. We had a long conversation on this forum with Indaswamp and Dave Omak talking about how you can do it

Keep records of your recipe, what you did and likes and dislikes to dial in your personal flavors. Post back up here after you finish or while you're doing it. Best of luck and look forward to see how well you do.

 

[archeryrob]

FYI, this is the thread Dave Omak posted about finishing at lower temps and pasteurization.

 

[worktogthr]

Another point that has not been mentioned is that without the cure, it will not taste like summer sausage or kielbasa. That hammy/bacony/hotdoggy taste is very much due to the cure.