n i a l l

For the hunter/ home processor there are few rewards greater than being blessed enough to bag your game and succesfully turn it into delicous sausage. And there are few finer compliments in life than when he or she breaks out a stick of their homemade summer sausage at deer camp, and it disapears quicker than Ole Mossy Horns on opening day of gun law.Tip 1.) Just because you are gona grind it up into sausage doesn't mean that proper field care of your deer isn't important. The best tasting sausage comes from the best cared for meat!Tip 2.) When making sausage from game meat it is necessary to trim all the natural fat and tallow from the meat. This is what lends the wild or "gamey" taste to game meat. You will need to add fat back into the meat, but this will be accomplished by mixing in pork shoulder & beef fat at the time of grinding.Tip 3.) Was it a bountiful year for small game? That's right. You can clean your freezer out and use all those rabbits, squirrels, upland birds, and waterfowl. They all make great sausage meat! Treat small game the same as you would venison. It just takes a few more animals to make a batch of sausage is all.Tip 4.) Proper field care, and trimming of fat matters very little if you proceed to grind & stuff the meat using improperly cleaned equipment. Wash and sanitize your equipment before & after each use. This includes grinders, stuffers, cutting boards, meat lugs, and cutlery.Tip 5.) If you find your meat mixture is too stiff to stuff try adding 1/2 cup of water per 5 lbs. of meat to make it more pliable.Tip 6.) Money permitting, do yourself a favor and purchase a dedicated stuffer. Every meat grinder from the smallest manual to the largest electric model comes with a stuffing funnel. However, stuffing sausage through a grinder is, to say the least, a very tedious chore. Let your grinder grind, and your stuffer stuff!Tip 7.) If you are a novice suasage maker purchase one or more of the many books written by veteren sausage makers. I obviously recommend Eldon Cutlip's book "Sausage & Jerky Handbook" found on the "How to Books" link to the left. These authors' efforts & experience can save you a lot of trial and error. Eldon's recipes are tried and true, but after a little experimenting you may want to personalize 1 or 2 of them to fit your tastes. And you know what? That's the fun of it! But its all the info you gain on sausage types, casings, curing, smoking, blooming, and other pertinent knowledge that make these books worth the time and money.