The American bison – the buffalo – kept mountain men alive and fed while they trapped beaver to make rich aristocrats’ top hats. The big cud-chewers were the easiest meat for mountain men to collect, and they ate a lot of it. A mature cow buffalo or a two-year-old bull would provide more than 300 pounds of usable meat. The only problem was preservation, especially in summer. The meat would go blue and slimy in a few days and in a few more it would be too putrid for even the mountain men’s strong stomachs. Making sausage, among other processing, proved essential.
DIY: Making Sausage
Eating most of a buffalo in a few days, even in company camps, was impossible, so these early trappers found ways to preserve the meat and make it easy to carry on the trapline. Meat could be sun- or fire-dried into jerky. It could also be made into pemmican, a dried mixture of pounded jerky, berries and rendered fat.
A third way, and the subject of this article, was to mince it into small pieces, mix it with salt, pepper, onions and other locally available herbs, then stuff the mixture into a tied-off length of buffalo intestine and slowly smoke it over a fire. All three of these choices required time and effort, but all three methods produced meat that would last for weeks or months without being kept cold. Many a trapper survived long trapline circles alone on these preserved meats.
Surprisingly, preserving meat by making it into sausage hasn’t changed much in nearly two centuries. It still requires work, but now there are many ways to make preparation easier.
Sausage Making Today
Hard sausages like salami and summer sausage are still popular today, and unsmoked sausage with seasonings make a great addition to any breakfast. Sausage has even been elevated to high cuisine with the increasing popularity of charcuterie trays for weddings and parties. Luckily for those of us who like to do it on our own, sausages can be made without a lot of fancy, expensive equipment. Most people start with ground meat: venison, pork or beef. Modern hunters generally take their deer to processors, and many country butchers cut up, grind and package the meat. But doing it yourself and turning your own meat into sausage and prime cuts isn’t difficult, it just takes time and planning.
Preparing to Make Sausage
Great sausage comes from untainted meat, so it’s important to get your animal gutted and cooled rapidly. The longer you spend showing off that 12-point buck to your buddies in the Walmart parking lot, the more rank and gamey the meat is going to taste.
Monte Burch is a knowledgeable hunter and meat handler. He has written dozens of books about making wild game taste its best. The Pocket Guide to Field Dressing, Butchering and Cooking Deer, is in my pack whenever I go after a deer. Here are some tips from a master.
“If the temperature is below 45 degrees and you can get there within half an hour you are better off getting the animal home or to your camp and gut it off the ground. This prevents getting dirt on the meat while dragging it,” Monte said. “If it’s hot or you have a long trek out of the woods go ahead and gut it. Then put the deer in a cheesecloth game bag to keep away flies, or wrap your jacket around the body cavity, you won’t get cold dragging a deer. As soon as possible put a bag of ice inside the body cavity.”
CWD Impacts
Widespread Chronic Wasting Disease has changed the way hunters handle meat.
“I hang the carcass by the feet, skin and bone it out completely,” Monte said. “I don’t even cut off the head or feet unless it’s a trophy buck. It’s more efficient and allows for quicker cooling of the meat in hot weather. Also, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of cleanliness and disinfection of working surfaces, tools and wearing rubber gloves during every step of making sausage.”
When cutting up a deer, trim away as much body fat as possible before processing, and remove as much sinew, gristle and tough pieces as you can. Monte stresses that venison fat becomes rancid quickly, and even when it doesn’t get rancid, it’s waxy and leaves a very unpleasant film in the roof of your mouth..
“The tougher cuts of meat, trimmings from boning and other scraps can be ground to produce deerburger,” Monte said. “A hand grinder will grind venison, but a power grinder makes the chore quicker and easier. Adding pork and seasonings makes much tastier sausage. Unfortunately, uncooked venison mixed with pork won’t last as long in the freezer unless it’s vacuum packed. The solution is to add the ground pork after you thaw the ground venison and season the meat to your taste at the same time. Then hand-mix, wearing gloves, or use a stand mixer on slow until the mixture looks uniform.”
Making Simple Hard Sausages
“If you have a way to smoke the meat, summer sausage, hard salami and pepperoni are easy to make,” said Wil Hafner, Facilities Manager for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Potlatch Cook’s Lake Nature Center. “Keep your sausage meat at 34-38 degrees when working it; this stickies it up and keeps it from spoiling. I use a mixture that is 30% pork and 70% venison, add water if the meat still needs moistening and use Morton Tender Quick Curing Salt and seasonings from Townsend Spice and Supply or mixes I work up myself. Part of the pleasure of making sausages is having your own unique flavors.
“Start with a maximum of 10 pounds of the venison/pork mixture and make sure it stays cold for the best stickiness and to prevent bacteria from spreading through the meat,” Will continued. “Add seasonings and cure then mix it thoroughly, wearing gloves to prevent bacterial contamination. After your first few batches using prepared seasonings, do some experimenting. Be creative. Add jalapenos, cheese or anything else you think would improve the flavor.”
Wil starts a sausage roll with 1 to 1½ pounds of meat on a piece of parchment paper and forms the rolls to about 2 inches in diameter and 10 inches long. He shapes the meat into a tube, then wraps the parchment paper tightly around it and tucks or twists the ends. Use all the meat in that batch, then store the rolls in a refrigerator overnight.
Smokin’
The sausages won’t have a skin, but they will hold together if compressed enough,” Hafner said. “The next morning, set your smoker to 200 degrees and let the sausages smoke for four to six hours,” Wil continued. “Smoke goes through the parchment paper so the oak, hickory or other flavor penetrates the meat. When the rolls feel firm, put them in an ice bath for about 20 minutes. Then freeze, or try a slice of your masterpiece.”
Sausage skins can also be hand stuffed and fastened at each end. Have something that will pack the sausage in tightly.
“Be creative and keep records of your spices and other additions,” Wil encourages. “The worst that can happen is you won’t want to make a particular mixture again. If you’re lucky and the sausage is good, friends who get a taste will be asking for a sausage at Christmas or for the recipe. Great homemade sausages don’t disappoint.”
Buffalo may not be your choice of sausage meat like the mountain men, but whatever you choose for the main ingredient, it’s within your power to make sausage that is uniquely yours and delicious.
Seasonings Make the Sausage
Hard sausages will keep indefinitely in a freezer, according to the University of Minnesota Extension Service, and summer sausage is good for at least three months. Frozen, unsmoked sausage will last about two months, and longer if vacuum-sealed.
Townsend Seasonings in Melbourne, Arkansas makes a wide variety of seasonings for all kinds of sausages. The seasonings come in several sizes, from table-sized shakers to multi-pound packages. Townsend’s sausage seasoning blends are delicious, but they often have strong red and black pepper components in their mixtures, so if you don’t like spicy, be sure to ask.
Check out their website to see their huge variety of seasonings they make: townsendspice.com.
Charcuterie
Impress your friends, serve a charcuterie tray at your next hunting camp or get together. Just heap on a variety of cooked or smoked pork sausages, bacon and meat dips, mustard and a few crackers and you will be dining just like the rich folks. The name comes from the French, but the food is just right for a meal outdoors. Just slice and serve, it’s a delicious way to answer a meat lover’s dreams.
