Lucky Hunter Today, and Venison Sausage Question

[antsi]

Got lucky hunting today. This nice buck walked right out in front of my stand. Even better, he did it while there was still plenty of daylight to field dress him and drag him up the hill. Another bit of luck: my shot was a bit high and would have been less than ideal - could have easily been just a lung shot - but happened to nail his aorta. No chasing halfway across the county! (BTDT!).

My wife has been wanting to try making breakfast sausage from venison. I am wondering if that would really work - seems venison might be a bit too lean for that (could mix in some pork I guess?). She really likes the breakfast sausage they make at Archers and I was thinking of asking them about this when I check the deer in the morning. Has anyone else ever tried this? (PS - she is not a fan of Summer Sausage, which I realize is the more common deer sausage to make).



Personally, I like venison for ground meat, roasts, and (of course) tenderloins. But if the wife wants breakfast sausage and that is do-able, it might behoove to accommodate her. I guess she also likes Italian sausage and brats, so if anyone has ever tried making those with venison I'd like to hear about it.

 

[phylodog]

I made breakfast sausage from a doe years ago and it was fantastic. I used 20% bacon ends with 80% venison and it was fantastic. The bacon ends gave it a smokey flavor that was similar to Cracker Barrel's breakfast sausage.

 

[ISP 5353]

Add bacon or some pork to it and season to taste! You will love it!

 

[RGriff69]

I have a lot of my burger mixed with breakfast sausage seasoning. Its a mix of sweet and spice that the Amish make it. If you're close, I'll give you some to try.

Congrats on the buck!

 

[TippecanoeSportsman]

I just finished up 20lbs of brats and italian sausage this weekend. I have found many, many recipes online for making a variety of sausages, but this time I chose to use the LEM brand seasoning mix that I picked up at Gander Mtn. I dropped a few test pieces into the skillet before running it into casings and I was very pleased with the flavor. I ran 3 batches: one of regular brats using beer instead of water in the mix, brats with pepper jack and jalepeno, and spicy italian. 5lbs of venison with 1lb of pork trimmings makes roughly 36-40 brats.

A few tips:
Add 20% pork fat/trimmings to your venison. Make sure everything is COLD, I stick the ground meat and fat in the freezer to set up before I mix it and stuff it in casings because it is much easier to work with--not nearly as sticky. When stuffing brats, breakfast sausage, etc be patient with the hog casings--they can be hard to work with until you get the hang of it. Spending a little extra $$ on a nice sausage stuffer is worth the savings in headaches.