Let's talk about sausage and venison

Deer hunting season is just around the corner and having a good plan of what to do with your venison this season could turn into a great holiday meal!  

Good sausage comes from fat, salt, water and a great formula.  It also follows a good technique in the production of sausage, meaning time and temperature are adhered to and throughout the steps proper handling of the meat and other ingredients brings them together in a symphonic orchestra way! 

What makes a good sausage? Starting with fresh sausages; flavor is probably the first sign of a good sausage, next would be how juicy is the sausage after cooked, no one really enjoys a dry mealy sausage! Finally, speaking of mealy, texture is also an important factor.  How do we get the results we are looking for? 

It all starts with a good formula, good equipment, and an understanding of some math to arrive at the right formula.  Wait! Math? Yes, math.  You have no idea how big your deer is going to be when you harvest that four-legged critter! I know you are hoping for the 30 pointer! But let’s be realistic, you have no idea what you are going harvest. 

Back to the math.  Most sausage recipes call for an exact weight of meat to be used, including the fat and other ingredients.  Have you ever heard of the Baker's Percentage?  This is a formula used in baking bread; the flour in the recipe is the 100% and all of the other ingredients are less than the amount of flour in the recipe, thus, they are a percentage of the 100%.  You can do the same in a sausage recipe; the meat is the 100% and all of the other ingredients are a percentage of the 100%.  

We can look at this recipe for smoked bologna and use it as our example. 

Basic Brat/Forcemeat for Bologna from the Professional Chef's Art of Garde Manger

Fritz H. Sonnenschmidt and John Nicolas

Before I go into this recipe, myself and my colleague had some wonderful opportunities to take a charcuterie course with Fritz Sonnenschmidt and on both occasions the class was excellent. The recipes were spot on, and the techniques were perfect.  

Bologna

Yield: approximately12-14 lbs.

Ingredients

Veal or turkey 3 lb.

Pork butt 3 lb.

Beef Shank 3 lb.

Ingredient	Original Amount	Percentage	New amount if we had 18 lbs. of meat
Salt	3 ounces	2.083%	5.76 ounces
Curing Salt	3 ounces	2.083%
Fatback or jowl fat	3 lbs.	33.33%
Crushed Ice	3 lbs.	33.33%
White pepper	½ ounce	5.5%
Caraway seed ground	1/7 ounce	.0993%
Diced onion	1.5 ounces	16.66%
Sugar	1 ounce	.6944%

Now how do we translate this recipe to fit into the meat we have from our hunt?  Before we go into that, I am going to recommend you get some fatback or jowl fat for this recipe; this is an emulsified recipe using the fat, and venison fat will just not do.   

Okay, let's start with our 3 meats in the recipe, veal or turkey, pork butt and beef shank.  The weight of the 3 comes to 9 lbs. You can use meat from the shoulder on your deer and the hind shanks, in addition you can use some meat from the sirloin knuckle found in the top round. Weigh all of those three ingredients.  If our formula calls for 9 pounds of meat, we need to first find out what our percentage is for the other ingredients.  If we convert everything into ounces, we can divide each ingredient into our 100% to get our percentage for each ingredient.  Taking 9 pounds and changing it to ounces we simply take 9 pounds and multiply it by 16 (16 ounces in a pound) and we come up with 144 ounces of meat in this recipe.  The recipe calls for 3 ounces of salt, it's already in ounces so all we have to do is divide 3 into 144 and we get .0208333 and to find out what that is in a percentage we multiply it by 100 and get 2.0833 percent.  Our fatback or jowl fat works out to 48 ounces and when we divide it by 144, we get, .33333 or 33.33% Our ice is the same if we use the 3 lbs. Now the spices, much smaller numbers means much smaller percentages. Half an ounce is .8 and we divide that by 144 to get .0555 and multiply that by 100 to get 5.55%.  One seventh in a decimal is .143 and we divide that by 144 to get .0009930 and multiply that by 100 to get .0993%. Next, 1 1/2 oz. of onions works out to 24 ounces divide it by 144 and we get .166666 multiply by 100 and we get 16.66 %. The sugar comes to .006944 and multiplies by 100 get us .69444% 

Now we know the percentage of each ingredient we can weigh our actual meat and use the percentages to increase our recipe or decrease our recipe, the formulas are not going to change in their percentages. 

If we have 18 lbs. of meat total, we will still need 2.083% of salt for the meat etc. First convert the 18 lbs. to ounces by multiplying it by 16 (ounces), which comes out to 288 ounces.  Now divide 288 by 100 and we get 2.88 and multiply it by 2 (note, I rounded the 2 from 2.083% as it is much easier to calculate) and we get 5.76 ounces needed for the new weight of the meat. You can round up or down depending how close the percentage is to the higher or lower number. 

This is the planning you can do ahead of time to come up with your formula for this or other recipes. 

Back to the recipe:

Bologna

Yield: approximately12-14 lbs.

Ingredients

Veal or turkey 3 lb.

Pork butt 3 lb.

Beef Shank 3 lb.

Ingredient	Original Amount	Percentage	New amount if we had 18 lbs. of meat
Salt	3 ounces	2.083%	5.76 ounces
Curing Salt	3 ounces	2.083%
Fatback or jowl fat	3 lbs.	33.33%
Crushed Ice	3 lbs.	33.33%
White pepper	½ ounce	5.5%
Caraway seed ground	1/7 ounce	.0993%
Diced onion	1.5 ounces	16.66%
Sugar	1 ounce	.6944%

 

Cut veal, pork and beef into cubes. Add salt and curing salt. Place in the refrigerator overnight.  Next day grind the beef, veal and pork using a medium plate. Place meat in food processor. Run 30 seconds until sticky. Add fat and combine. Add ice a handful at a time and run 30 seconds each time until all of the ice has been added. Add spices, onion and sugar, and blend for 30 seconds. Use mixture to fill beef middle casing, approximately 15 inches long. Let set in a cooler for 2 hours, to dry. Cold smoke for 2 to 3 hours at a temperature of 225 degrees f.  Blanch the stuffed bologna at 170 f to an internal temperature of 150 f. Shock in ice and remove water. Note: This recipe can be used a basic forcemeat before spices are added. To use it in hotdogs, substitute hot dog spices for those in this recipe. 

Once you get the hang of using percentages for your recipes, you will see the value of doing this way and how easy it is to convert any recipe for the meat you are using.  I know some hunters don't want to add other fat or proteins to their venison and I get it, but when it comes to sausage preparation, it is important to understand the value of the fat from pork versus using the fat from the deer, it's just not the same.  

Just a couple of notes: invest in some good equipment for sausage making starting with a grinder that can handle large amounts of meat and a food processor that can also handle large amounts.  Both are worth the expense.  I would also consider finding a good sausage stuffer, especially if you plan on making more! 

Cheers from Chef Paul Short and Grey Woods Farm!